


Maybe One Day

by pointerbrother



Category: One Direction
Genre: Alpha Harry, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Angst, Bottom Louis, Dubious Consent, Friends to Lovers, Knotting, M/M, Omega Louis, Pining, Smut, Very Degrading Sexual Behaviour, Violent Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-12
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-03-14 15:44:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 15
Words: 60,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13593270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pointerbrother/pseuds/pointerbrother
Summary: “I’d like to say welcome to you all, old friends and as well as new, I’m honoured that you’ve come and that we’re all embarking on this as first-timer’s together,” Liam says, raising a glass. They’re all sat cross-legged in a circle on the livingroom-rug that Louis and Zayn rolled out just half an hour ago, with champagne in plastic-cups and Niall plinging intermittently on a badly strung guitar. Like a proper sixties hippie commune. Like what they are now, Louis supposes, give or take fifty years. “Cheers to our new family! Let it be a happy one!”--When Louis and the majority of his friends agree to live together in one big house in Manchester, the idea seems crazy, but like a great opportunity.Louis just forgets to factor in the issue of living a bit too closely with people that he's always wanted even closer than that. Mainly Harry, that is.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The premise of the setting is inspired by the Danish movie "The Commune" / "Kollektivet", but the plotline is largely inspired by an anonymous 3-part ask I received by a really sweet person on my tumblr. 
> 
> Their idea just fit so much with what I enjoyed while writing Fucking Animals, and what I enjoy writing in general so I had to get it down. 
> 
> This is a selfish piece of filth that I just got really into writing. And before you ask, no I haven't abandoned Waterbridge, I'll get back to focusing on that soon. This fic won't be as long as most of my other fics, this is just, well... something I got into and I hope some of you will like ;)

“I’d like to say welcome to you all, old friends and as well as new, I’m honoured that you’ve come and that we’re all embarking on this as first-timer’s together,” Liam says, raising a glass. They’re all sat cross-legged in a circle on the livingroom-rug that Louis and Zayn rolled out just half an hour ago, with champagne in plastic-cups and Niall plinging intermittently on a badly strung guitar. Like a proper sixties hippie commune. Like what they are now, Louis supposes, give or take fifty years. “Cheers to our new family! Let it be a happy one!”

Everyone howls their cheers, Louis included, and he downs his entire cup of champagne in one go. They’ve been moving all day, hoisting bed-frames and dressers and desks up to the first and second floors in all sorts of inventive and dangerous ways. They’ve been shouting and screaming, laughing and yelling, chugging beers, getting tripped by children and accidentally smashing people’s mirrors and porcelain knick-knacks.

It’s been a lovely first day in “the new family”.

Some of them, he’s known for ages, like Harry, or Niall and Kate, or Camille and Emmy, or Liam and Zayn, who are all pretty much already like family to him. Some of them he’s known all of _their_ lives, like Liam and Zayn’s sons, five-year-old Elliot and six-year-old Micky, or Niall and Kate’s three-year-old twins Eve and Erin. Some of them he only knows a tiny bit through Harry, like Nick and Dan, recently evicted from their building after “frequent violent domestic altercations”.

But, as Liam just pointed out, what they all have in common, old friends or new, is that they’re first-timer’s at this. This whole commune thing.

When Liam called Louis up a while back and said _mate, my granddad’s left me a massive eight-bedroom estate in Bowdon, Manchester, I know you’re out of a job and struggling to pay rent, why don’t you come up here and rent a room from us and we’ll pay you to take care of the kids while we’re at work?,_ Louis didn’t blink an eye before saying yes. He’d just lost his job at the daycare he’d worked at, as well as his boyfriend of seven months, and he was on the brink of moving back home to Donny.

When he then arrived in Manchester to have a look at the house, he realised just how massive ’massive’ meant. And that, even for a family of four plus Louis, it was much, much too spacious. They rung up Camille and Emmy, old friends from school and a lesbian beta-beta couple who’d functioned as surrogates for each of Zayn and Liam’s - two male beta’s - son’s. Adventurous and spontaneous as they were, and still are , it didn’t take long for them to agree to move across town and into the house as well. It also didn’t take long for them to reveal to Louis that Emmy had been inseminated with another mix of Liam and Zayn’s sperm and that she’d just found out the procedure had been successful.

She’s six months along now, and glowing, Louis thinks as he looks across the circle at her and Camille, who’s holding her from behind, rubbing her belly.

Beside them sit Niall and Kate, cute Irish couple and old school-friends too, who took their twin-daughters and jumped on board after Zayn and Liam put out a Facebook-status for all their friends to see. Niall went to school in England, but moved back to Ireland when his mum got ill and later on met and married Kate. He’d always longed to move back to England and Kate had always longed to move away from her abusive, controlling mother, so when they saw the opportunity, they decided to take it before their daughters were old enough to have started school and made too many friends.

Which also added two more kids and extra income to Louis’ at-home daycare.

Harry, who’d been moaning to no end about the fact that Louis was moving away from London and _meee, Lou-eh, you’ll leave me all alone_ , first brought Nick and Dan into the mix when Louis told him they still had room to spare. Then, two weeks ago, Harry got kicked out by the girl he’d been living with for the past six months. _I mean, she was really nice, but we never said we were exclusive or anything. I never really fancied her like that, although the sex was freaky, but I think she expected me to change my mind eventually since she let me live at her place for free and fuck her in the arse all the time. Anyway, she kicked me out when she found out I’d been screwing the pizza-guy for three weeks while she was at work_ , he told Louis and Louis slapped him over the back of the head and Harry gave a guilt-ridden giggle. Soon after that, Harry pulled a few strings and relocated from the London-office to the Manchester one and occupied the last spare room in Liam’s commune, which Louis was more happy about than he’d ever admit out loud.

And that’s the extent of it. That’s them all. The new family.

After the twelve am-housemeeting, they all stumble off to their newly furnished bedrooms, calling it quits on moving-day. There are no paintings up in the house yet, no tv’s connected, loads of moving-boxes and black refuse-sacks standing around in every corner, but at least they’ve got all the big furniture in. Louis’ room is up on the second floor down near the end of the hall. At the very end, there’s a huge newly renovated bathroom with spacious shower, corner-jacuzzi and lots of drawer-space under the sink-counter, which they’ve, of course, already designated out between everyone living on the second floor - Harry, Louis, Camille and Emmy and Nick and Dan. All the childless people, essentially.

Harry got the biggest bedroom, after winning a major coin-flipping contest, but the one across from that, which Louis ended up with, isn’t too bad for one little omega anyway. He’s got his queensized been in here, clad in fadedblack cotton sheets, his wide three-drawer dresser and nightstand in one, and an inbuilt three-door closet, as well as a long mirror that he’s steadied up against the wall and will, probably, never get round to actually hanging up. He’s got a view of the backyard, with the swingset- and slide structure, the sandpit and the kid-sized goalposts, which is way better than the concrete wall his bedroom-window in London faced directly into, so.

No, this is nice. This is a new adventure, with all of his self-chosen family right down the hall from him.

“Hey, Lou,” Harry says, creaking the door open when Louis’ just slid into bed and pulled out his book and reading glasses.

“Hey, Haz,” Louis says, mocking his drawl.

Harry chuckles, and leans against the jamb, scratching at his tatted bicep. He’s in a pair of pink boxers, tight ones, and nothing else. His long hair is pulled up in a bun. “I’ve just been down the hall saying goodnight to everyone,” he says, “you’re my last stop.”

“Well, don’t I feel special.”

“If it’s any consolation, I didn’t stop properly in any of the other doors,” Harry grins, “I just quickly opened, yelled goodnight and then slammed the door again. Showed ‘em they were nothing but dirty insignificant whores to me, you know? Nothing like you.”

Louis snorts a chuckle, rolling his eyes and landing them back on his bookpage. “S’bloody annoying, I’ve gotta get up and all the way across the room to turn me light off when I’m done with the chapter,” he mutters, “cause Liam and Zayn’s bloody devil-kids smashed my bedside lamp.”

“Oh,” Harry says, “well, you can have mine. Or, one of mine. I have two. Or, like, I have a spare.”

“What?”

“Hang on.”

Harry turns and Louis cranes his neck to see him head straight into his own room and disappear. He turns back to his book, fixing his glasses up on his nose and reading on. He hasn’t really read anything, at least not anything that’s made it’s way from his eyes to his brain, by the time Harry arrives back. He’s carrying what looks like an old-fashioned theater-curtain wrapped around a cobber-stick.

“I got it at the flea-market,” he says gleefully, slamming it right down on Louis’ nightstand-dresser, “it’s not, like, super lightful or anything, but—”

“Lightful?” Louis echoes, just to see Harry grin in that sheepish hehe-stupid-me-way that he loves so much.

Harry rummages around with the chord behind the dresser and finally flicks the lamp on by the little pull chain because that’s how hipster that lamp is; it has a _pull chain_ for a switch. It does do the job at lighting the room enough for reading, though, and the gesture is sweet enough that Louis reaches over and gives Harry’s pudgy hip a little squeeze.

“Thanks, mate,” he says, and Harry smiles down at him, “s’nice of you.”

“No problem,” Harry says, reaching right down and petting Louis’ cheek, “goodnight, Lou.”

“Goodnight,” Louis murmurs, scratching absently at his flushed cheek as Harry waddles away.

 

*

 

The first week in “the commune” is overwhelming, to say the least. Everyone’s still on break, but they’re working every waking hour, unpacking and decorating. Making the house look like home. Most of the time, Louis spends entertaining the children, keeping them from stepping on nails or smashing more lamps. Louis and the house’s two other omegas, Nick and Kate, do dinner and dishes the first two nights, then have a strop because they feel as though everyone’s assigned them as housemother’s due to their breed. It confuses all the beta’s and alpha’s, who’ve been working hard lifting and wiring and nailing stuff up, but it helps Louis make easy friends with Nick, so that’s nice.

And, after a week and a _lot_ of who-cooks-when and who-cleans-that and how-does-that-fit-with-people’s-schedule’s, things begin to feel all right. It doesn’t make it worse that the house has started looking rather cosy too. They’ve got rugs everywhere, paintings and pictures, they’ve got throw-pillows and — who is he kidding, they’ve got telly and internet-access. And it’s like water in the desert.

Soon, Harry, Liam, Zayn, Niall, Kate, Camille and Nick go back to work, while Louis does too, but from home, babysitting the children like he’s been doing for a week already, and Dan works from home on his laptop and Emmy’s on maternity leave.

“Aren’t you looking forward to having a screaming baby added to the mix?” Emmy asks Louis, as they’re sitting in lawn-chairs, watching over the kids while they play on the swings and slides and whatnot, and Louis’ just had to jump between Elliot and Micky to keep them from punching each other for the third time in half an hour.

“At least by then, Micky’ll be starting school,” Louis sighs, “but you’re so mild-mannered and sweet, I’m sure you’ll make an easy baby.”

“Yeah, cause the last one I made turned out super calm and quiet,” Emmy snorts, eyes on Elliot who’s currently digging in the sandpit with both hands like he’ll die if he doesn’t reach the bottom in the next three seconds.

Louis gulps. “Christ, I need a glass of wine.”

“Bit early for that, innit?” Dan asks, coming out to join them. Louis hasn’t had many one-on-one conversations with the six-foot, broad-shouldered ex almost pro-footballer, but he seems nice enough. Always smiling, big brown eyes glinting as they catch the sun.

“Perhaps,” Louis sighs, turning back to the kids.

“I’ve gotta wee again, you take my chair, mate,” Emmy says, getting up and leaving Louis alone with Dan.

Dan plops down by Louis and they sit for a while in silence.

“So,” Dan says, eventually, “how d’you feel this whole housesharing thing’s working out? So far?”

“Jesus,” Louis says on a long breath out, deflating a bit in his chair, “I really don’t know. It’s better than moving back home to my childhood room and sleeping on a racecar-bed.”

Dan laughs. “Right, yeah, okay.”

“How about you?”

“I like it so far,” he says, glancing over at Louis and smiling, “s’nice getting closer to a lot of new people. I love meeting new people.”

“Yeah, me too, you’re right. The kids aren’t getting in the way of your work or anything?”

Dan smiles. “No, not at all, you take so good care of them. Saw you kicking the ball around with them earlier, _you_ were the one who tired _them_ out.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“Not by much, though. You’ve got a lot of energy, in general, always buzzing about, filling the room up. It’s quite amazing to watch.”

Louis glances over him. “You’ve been watching?”

“Yeah,” Dan says, eyes a bit too firm, nostrils a bit too wide, “s’quite hard not to.”

“So,” Louis says, slightly too high-pitched, turning his gaze back to the kids, “you and Nick. How long was it again?”

“Six years.”

“And— don’t know if you’ve already said, I’m sorry, but were you married or not?”

“Nope. Haven’t got round to that yet.”

“Are you planning on it? Proposing?”

Dan sighs heavily. “Jesus,” he says, “I don’t know. Probably. At some point. We’ll see. As for now, we’re just having fun. I mean, being us. That’s enough at the moment.”

Louis nods, watching closely as Eve and Erin force themselves down the slide the same time. They make it in one piece, luckily. “You seem happy.”

“We are,” Dan says and, after such a long while that Louis’ half-forgotten his presence, he adds, “we’re open, you know.”

“What?”

Dan’s looking at Louis’ thighs when Louis looks over at him, his gaze quickly snapping up to meet his eyes. “We’re open,” he says, “as in, we have a ’don’t ask, don’t tell’ sort of arrangement.”

He keeps looking at Louis until Louis snaps his gaze away. He never knew what to do with the intimidating intensity some alpha’s have to them.

“Well,” he just says, getting out of his seat and heading toward the kids, “that’s good for you.”

 

*

 

He doesn’t tell anyone about his first one-on-one conversation with Nick’s creepy boyfriend. Dan continues to be nice to everyone, to cook greatly and clean everything that he’s been assigned to clean, respect everyone and not come onto Louis again after he got shot down the first time. He still looks, though, when they’re all lounging in the common area after dinner’s, eyes running up and down Louis’ body. It makes him uncomfortable, yes, but it’s not the worst thing he’s experienced as an omega in an alpha’s world. It’s just life. It just is what it is. Some alpha’s can’t control themselves, some alpha’s are of the misguided perception that the more persistent they are in their pursuit of the omega they want a piece of, the more that omega will want them, and then, eventually, after “playing hard to get” for as long as they’ve felt necessary, give in.

But that’s not Louis. Louis isn’t a saint, he’s had his fair share of sex, but he’s never had sex with a man in a relationship. He’s too prone to physical attachment to risk dealing with the ’don’t ask don’t tell’-thing and he’s too familiar with how it hurts to be cheated on to deal with that, either.

Besides, Dan isn’t really his type, however fit and buff he is, and Louis certainly isn’t interested in shitting on his own doorstep just for a lazy fuck in the broomcloset with a man that isn’t really his type. Case closed.

When, one evening a few weeks into living together as a huge family-unit, Dan growls at Louis when he gets a little slick watching a movie with a sex-scene in it, though, Louis gets angry. It’s not a loud growl, not loud enough that Niall hears from the loungechair, but it’s fucking disrespectful. Niall’s a fucking alpha too, and Louis can see his nostrils flaring all the way over from the loungechair, but he isn’t sat there growling like a fucking animal. Sure, he’s growled at Louis before, in the odd weak moment, but he’s been Louis friend for years and Louis hardly knows Dan at all.

“Fuckin’ hell,” he mutters under his breath, setting off the couch and marching out of the room.

He’s hardly made it to the stairs before Dan’s reached up to him.

“You all right?” he asks, but his voice is hoarse with lust.

“Piss off.”

“What? Why?” the dick exclaims, as if he doesn’t know anything it all.

Louis spins around. “Cause I’m not interested in your growls or your knot and you don’t seem able to get that through your thick skull.”

Dan’s mouth drops open.

Before he has a chance to speak, Harry’s walked up to them. “Everything all right?” he asks, a big hand settling on the small of Louis’ back.

“Yeah,” Dan mutters. Louis doesn’t check Harry’s expression, but whatever it looks like, it makes Dan back up instantly. “Yeah, I’m sorry if I’ve offended you, Louis, I didn’t mean to, really. Sorry.”

Louis forces himself to nod and take the apology, lips pressed thin.

“What was that about?” Harry asks as they’re walking up the stairs together. He smells strongly of sweat and he’s wearing his little red running-shorts and a white t-shirt that’s clinging to his skin where it’s drenched dark grey down his back and Louis’ having to walk at a three-foot distance of him just to cope.

“Nothing,” Louis sighs, because he knows Harry gets so easily fired up about these things that it’s past being funny. Once upon a time, Louis found it flattering, thought it was about him as an individual. Then he realised it was just Harry’s alpha side, protecting any and every omega he knew, his endless string of girl- and boyfriends too. “Think we’re all just trying to get used to sharing a space.”

Harry nods. “Yeah, okay,” he says, “well, you can always come to me and we can hang just you and me.”

“Why don’t you have a shower first, sweat-pits.”

“Mean.”

 

*

 

Later that evening, when Louis’ lying in bed, Harry comes in and asks if he wants to watch a movie, just the two of them.

“Did you shower?”

“No,” Harry says, but he smells like soap and kiwi shampoo when he slips into Louis’ bed. They pull out Louis’ laptop and find a nasty slasher.

Harry’s only wearing boxers, which is a lot considering he boasts about always sleeping naked any chance he gets, but it feels like a little when he links an arm around Louis and pulls him in to rest on his shoulder. He’s scratching absently at Louis’ arm, and he’s nosing at his temple, probably just to kill an itch, and it has the same effect on Louis as it’s always had. He knows he doesn’t have the same effect on Harry, never has had, not even after that one night they shared a bed on vacation and Harry rubbed off on Louis’ arse in his sleep and came in his pants and Louis let it happen just to feel a slither of what all his girlfriends feel when they fuck so good it has him yelling through the walls.

They woke the following morning and Louis had gotten into his deranged mind that Harry rubbing off on him while sleeping meant that Harry had to be attracted to him in some way, even if just physical, even if just his scent, so he’d kissed down Harry’s neck, rubbed him through his cummy pants and when Harry had woken up properly and chuckled and said _Lou, what are you doing_ and _Lou, easy, hey, stop_ , he’d said _I’ll give you a blowjob, please just let me give you a blowjob, I won’t ask anything in return_ , and Harry had pushed him off with a hard _no_ and gone and showered. He’d wanked in the shower, too, because his own hand was better than a mouth if that mouth belonged to Louis.

That was years ago now and Louis’ come to terms with the fact that Harry fucks every girl or guy who’ll let him, but won’t so much as close his eyes and let his dick in Louis’ mouth, because that’s just too fucking gross. He’s come to terms with that now. He has.


	2. Chapter 2

“You had _one_ job!” Liam screams, before he turns around and slams the door to the kitchen. 

“Yeah, run away and hide, real mature!” Louis screams after him, but Liam doesn’t come back out. Louis’ panting hard, face hot-red and heart pounding. He’s standing in the middle of the livingroom, blocking the telly, not that it matters; everyone’s watching him eagerly. Niall and Kate and Nick and Dan are all sat in the couches one evening after the kids have been put down - although they’re probably awake again now - and Louis and Liam have given them a better show than anything the telly could provide.

It started when Liam stepped on a lego on the livingroom floor. It blew up from then on.

“Jesus fuckin’ _christ_ ,” Louis hisses, “one piece of fuckin’ plastic and he’s blowing up like he’s been shot through the foot, the fuckin’ crybaby,” he grumbles on, mostly to himself, marching off toward the staircase, “give me a fuckin’ break, it’s shit o’cock in the evening, the kid’s are all down, why’s it gotta be my responsibility that they’ve left one of their lego’s on the floor, they’re so small they’re practically invisible, I can’t bloody believe him.”

He’s reached the end of the hall by now and opened Harry’s door. Harry and Camille are slouched on Harry’s floor-mattress - because Harry’s too hipster to have a bedframe - listening to Beatles on vinyl. He’s propped up on a pillow, naked like the day he was born, holding a spliff in one hand and the neck of a bottle of red-wine in the other. She’s lying further down, on her belly, in a white band t-shirt and black lacy knickers, inspecting the back of a record-case, spliff pinned between her lips.

“Did you guys just fuck?”

They laugh.

“He was naked when I came in,” Camille mutters around her spliff, “surprise, surprise, I know.”

Louis walks in, making a point of not looking at Harry’s prick. Which is why he’s especially offended when Harry still drags his sheet up over his lap like it’d be a crime that Louis saw it. Which is stupid because Louis’ seen it more times than he can count, even hard one time, when he, Niall and Ziam had a competion, in which the words _who comes first?_ were taken very literally.

He swallows down a bitter remark. It’d only make himself look pathetic.

“What are you guys doing?” he asks instead, as if he doesn’t have eyes in his head.

“Just hanging,” Camille mutters, “Emmy’s got a headache, she went to bed early and kicked me out. Said I make too much noise just breathing.”

Louis sighs, plopping down just by Camille’s feet. He fiddles with a loose string on the one red tennissock she’s wearing, rolling it up around his finger and then loosening again, just calming his own temper.

“You all right?” Harry still asks, reaching his spliff over for Louis to take. He does gladly. “We heard people screaming downstairs.”

“Even over the music?”

“Yep,” Camille says.

“Jesus, I’m a terrible role model for the kids.”

“You’re awesome,” Camille says, “angel by day, raging weed-smoking maniac by night. I’d let you babysit my kids any day.”

“Well, I sort of already am,” Louis argues, handing the smoke back to Harry after a much too long drag.

She pulls the spliff out of her mouth, tucks her unbrushed blonde hair behind one ear and glances back at him. “No you’re not,” she says, “they’re not my kids.”

“You gave birth to at _least_ one of them.”

“They’re not my kids. They’re Zayn and Liam’s.” The look in her eyes gets so sharp that Louis backs off.

He has a swig of Harry’s redwine and then apologises, realising what a dick he just was. “Sorry, I’m just a bit irritated still,” he sighs, scooting up the mattress, tucking into Harry’s side, “it’s the third time this week someone’s gone off at me for leaving kid’s toys in the livingroom.”

“Well, why don’t you stop doing that?” Camille suggests, dropping the record-case and rolling onto her back. Her pierced nipples show through the thin fabric of her t-shirt.

Louis went with her to get the first one done back in the day, hell, he even rubbed the numbing cream on beforehand. She told him later on that she’d done her second without any cream and she’d had an orgasm from it, not that he’s sure he believes her; Camille’s always been quite fond of being explicit just for the sake of shock-value. Her cunt’s showing too, he’s realises as she spreads her legs a bit, because the lace of her panties has ripped between her thighs.

“I try not to,” Louis murmurs, nuzzling into Harry’s arm.

He hates that he does this, that he sees something sexy in front of him and knows Harry’s looking too, and feels an instant need to remind him that he’s here. He hates every part of it because he loves Camille and she’s done nothing wrong and yet he hates her for being someone that Harry would jump at the chance of getting to fuck if she offered.

“But, like… it’s impossible to get everything off the floor all the time, isn’t it?” Harry drawls, “like, if they’re playing with legos, the pieces are so small you’re bound to miss one or two.”

“Exactly,” Louis exclaims, “and the thing is, the only good place for us to play is the livingroom cause they’re kind of caged in by the couches and they’re on the rug and they’ve got space and everything. But at the same time, it’s bloody impossible because it’s also where all the adults come to play when they’re home from work.”

“What’d you do in the daycare you worked at?”

“Well, that was specifically arranged to play in. It had a playroom just for the kids to roll around with all their toys so people were aware that stuff could be lying on the floor there.”

“That’s shit,” Camille sighs, blowing smoke up at the ceiling, her plump lips pursing sexily as she does.

“Yeah,” Louis agrees, pulling a bit more on Harry’s arm.

 

*

 

Two days after that, Louis loses track of Micky for one second and he ends up smashing an expensive heirloom vase with a football, and the day after that Kate trips on a toy car and sprains her wrist, and the day after that Louis goes home to Donny for an extended weekend. He only means to stay until Tuesday, but the peace and privacy that comes with lounging about in his childhood-bedroom while his sisters are all either at school or work or college is addictive. He’s never been much of a loner, but fucking hell, living in a house with four other families, plus children, plus Harry, is overwhelming to say the least.

He comes back Thursday anyway, because he’s got a job to take care of and Zayn can’t take anymore sick-days off to do it for him, and, well— who is he kidding, Harry texted him **come home,** **miss you** and he jumped on a train an hour later.

He’s always been an easy piece of shit when it came to Harry and he’s always been equally self-conscious about that fact. He wonders sometimes whether what Harry likes most about him is the fact that _he_ likes Harry so much. Whether Harry knows just how bad it gets at times, just how quick any bit of spark Louis feels with anyone else pales in comparison the second Harry walks in the door.

But, he knows Harry isn’t that sort of person, really. He doesn’t think he’d love him this much if he were.

Either, Harry does know just how much this thing has stuck, grown and become part of Louis through all the years they’ve never been more than _so close, but yet so far_ , and he’s just being nice, just trying to see past it, hoping it’ll blow over, or else he’s just completely oblivious because he simply doesn’t think of Louis that way at all. Louis doesn’t know which is worse. 

“Hey mate, it’s good to have you back,” Liam says soon as Louis walks in the door, dropping his duffel with a loud sigh. It’s late in the evening and he should be more careful, sleeping children considered, but Liam doesn’t look anything happy to see him. “We were worried we’d scared you off or something.”

“Never,” Louis says, giving Liam’s cheek a pinch and a pat, “I thought we’d settled that years ago, love.”

Zayn comes up to him too, and then Camille, and then Emmy, and then Niall and Kate, and even Nick and Dan, and suddenly Louis can’t remember why he left here at all. Suddenly Louis is reminded of the good side of this whole arrangement; coming home to a stream of loving faces does beat a seedy little flat and a cat that ran out on him without a word just after he’d lost his job. They’re all in sweats or knickers, all makeup-less and with a toothbrush or a string of floss hanging out of the mouth, but they came down just to greet Louis and carry his bag up to his room for him and that fact, in itself, makes them all look rather beautiful.

“Where’s Harry?” he can’t keep in any longer, once he’s come back down from having changed into trackies and a hoodie, and Nick, Dan, Camille and Emmy are the only one’s still up. “S’he out or—”  

They share knowing looks.

“No, he’s home,” Camille says, private little grin on her lips.

Louis feels his stomach tighten up, throat going dry. “Oh, is he… he’s got someone over, or…”

“Oh,” Camille exclaims, eyes going round, “no, darling, no no, it’s— well, you should see for yourself, actually.”

They all snicker.

Louis shifts weight. “What do you mean? What’s going on, is there something I’m not getting?”

“Au contraire,” Camille giggles, and Emmy rolls her eyes at her and smiles at Louis and says; “love, go down in the cellar and see.”

“The cellar?” Louis does remember having been swiftly shown around a large space of mildewy concrete and cobwebs and one tiny blinking little creep of a shadeless loft-lamp. The space hasn’t been spoken of since. “What’s—”

“Shut up, just go down there,” Nick cuts him off, giggling with the rest, “don’t ask any questions, just go and you’ll see.”  

Louis takes a few step in the direction of the kitchen, then turns and says, “if this is a prank then I’m—”

“Just go the fuck down there already!”

He turns then, and heads through the kitchen where he’s pretty certain the cellar-door is. He knocks it first, feeling a bit nervous suddenly, and then Harry yells out; “who is it?!” from down there, and he relaxes.

“Louis!”

There’s a beat of silence, and then; “okay, gimme a sec and I’ll be up!”

“Are you naked?”

“Yes!”

Louis drops his forehead to the door and waits, smiling to himself. Then the door gets opened inward and he literally _falls_ into Harry’s arms.

“Shit,” Harry laughs, gripping the railing of the spiral staircase he’s standing atop of to keep from falling, “easy, babe.” Louis goes to pull back again, but Harry hooks an arm around his waist and holds him for a second, nosing into his neck. “Missed you.”

“Only been a few days,” Louis mutters into his warm skin, clawing at bit at the back of his sweater. “You lied. You’re not naked.”

“S’been almost a week,” Harry mutters back, “and no, sorry to disappoint, but I’ve got something else to make up for right behind me.”

“What, your cute bum?”

Harry laughs and backs out of the hug when Louis goes to squeeze said bodypart, and Louis busies himself fixing his fringe while he waits for the scent-induced flush in his cheeks to go down. It isn’t like Harry doesn’t sniff Louis too, even comments on it if Louis’ just been dicked by someone new, but it’s more of an instinctual act on his part. He’d do it to any omega-friend of his if he were as tactile with them as he is Louis. For Louis, it’s different, of course, always is. If he gets a little slick when Harry lets him spoon him on the couch watching telly, Harry never comments on the smell of it, never asks _do I have that much of an effect on you, just by sniffing my neck? How come Niall doesn’t? How come Dan doesn’t? Is it only me?_

Which is a good thing because Louis isn’t sure, if asked, that he’d be able to say anything other than the truth. _It’s always only you._

“So,” Harry says, leading them down the staircase, “you ready to be blown—” he trips himself on those long legs of his, but saves it by jumping the last four steps and landing on his feet, miraculously. He turns, shakes his long hair out and then smiles up at Louis, wide and beautiful. “You ready to be blown away?”

“Damn, why’d you have to add that last word,” Louis jokes pathetically, “got my hopes up for a second there, you fuckin’ cocktease.”

Harry chuckles. “Cocktease of Cheshire. S’what they call me, innit.”

Louis would retort, but he’s reached the end of the stairs and he’s sort of stuck on everything that’s going on behind Harry. He’s sort of stuck for words.

Behind Harry, in what was before The One Room In The House That Shall Not Be Mentioned, is now—

Fluffy grass-green carpeting, sky-blue tapestry with clouds and aeroplanes and rainbows and birds and butterflies and, on one wall, a massive hot air balloon with a collection of different animals waving from it. The lighting issue’s been fixed in the form of cloud-shaped lamps in the ceiling, and it’s nice and warm in here too. There’s a massive dollhouse in one corner, a cosy collection of teddie’s and pillows and beanbag chairs in the other, an art- and drawing station in the last and a sort of pirate-ship with a plank to walk and a pole to slide down in the middle of it all.

“What the…”

“And, and, eh—” Harry grabs a gaping Louis by the arm and drags him around the staircase to a brightly spray-painted storage unit full of foldable fabric-boxes. “Like, so here I’ve put in their toys and some board games and stuff. Obviously, there’s not stuff in all of them, but I thought you’d want to fill the rest yourself. Ehm, but… yeah.” He scratches at the front of one of the boxes. “And there’s, like, you can put a little slip of paper in these little pockets or whatever they’re called to write what’s in each box.”

Louis nods, even though Harry’s got his back turned to him still.

“Harry,” he manages to say after a moment of silence, voice cracking in the middle, “what the fuck is all this?”

Harry turns. “I don’t know,” he says, “I thought you might like to have a playroom,” he scratches at his hair and grins and Louis swallows, hard, “I mean, and there’s so much space down here. And then you could maybe make a rule that, like— I don’t know, so the kids don’t leave toys upstairs and that.” He drags his top teeth over his lip. “Do you like it?”

“Do I like it?” Fuck, his hands are shaking. “Harry. Fuck, I can’t—” he scrubs a hand over his mouth and spins around, taking in the room again before he’s back to staring at Harry. “This is too much, you— you did this just cause I said it bothered me?”

Harry shrugs a shoulder. “For the kids too, I mean. But, yeah. You, mostly. Cause, like…” he shrugs again, smile small and sheepish, “you said.”

Louis swallows again, even though he’s got no more left to sink in his dry throat, and crosses his arms over his chest as he turns back toward the rest of the room, nodding manically. This must’ve taken hours upon hours. And with Harry’s job he must’ve gone straight down here every day, he must’ve spent all his freetime fixing this up. Just because Louis said. Just to make him happy.

“You like it?” Harry asks, walking up behind him and picking at the back of his hoodie. “I know it’s a bit over the top, but—”

“I like it,” Louis croaks, “I like it a lot, I—” _I just don’t know how to react. This is just_ — “too much, Haz.”

“Well, it’s saving me from certain death by toys up through the foot too, so I guess it’s kind of selfish in a way, but— uhm. I’m glad you like it. You seem a bit… shaken up.”

To say the least. “I think this is the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for me,” Louis half-whispers, “I don’t— I know it isn’t _just_ for me, I know, but— the fact that you did it just cause I said it bothered me, you—”

Harry steps in and pulls Louis’ hood up over his head and presses his face into the fabric where it covers the nape of his neck. “I’m glad you like it,” he says, snaking his arms around Louis’ stomach and biting at the back of his hoodie, “I just need to put up the safety gates on the stairs and then it’ll be… yours for the taking. Or well, the kids, but—”

“Thank you,” Louis cuts through, turning in Harry’s arms and burying into the front of his scratchy sweater, “fuck, I’m sorry, I just don’t know how to react cause it’s so—”

“I know,” Harry chuckles softly, cupping the back of his hoodie-clad head and patting his back, “have known you for a year or two at this point, haven’t I?”

Louis nods against him and Harry pats him a bit more, both on the back and the back of the head and he knows it’s code for _okay, that’s enough now, mate, pull back_ , but he can’t bring himself to. He links his arms around Harry’s neck and squeezes him closer, presses his face into his warm neck and stays there until Harry melts into the touch too and his big hands find their way up under Louis’ thighs. He’s off the floor quite smoothly, and he makes sure to lock his legs around Harry’s waist immediately.

“I love you,” he mutters against the side of Harry’s jaw, overwhelmed with how much he means that, how hard it is not to say every second of every hour of every day, “I love you so much.”

Harry chuckles. “Love you too, Lou.”

“Mhm,” Louis whines, and smacks a sloppy wet kiss to his cheek, “you’re so amazing, always, you’re so—” he presses another kiss to Harry’s cheek and Harry reciprocates on Louis’, albeit slightly less wet and sucky, “I love you so much.”

“What’s gotten into you?” Harry laughs, hitching his bum up a little, “you going into heat soon or?”

“Fuck off,” Louis snort-laughs and pulls back to look down at him. “I’m allowed to react, you’ve made a whole _room_ for me, you’ve put together a bloody  _pirate_ _ship_ , for christ’s sake.”

“Well, Dan and Liam did—”

“Still,” Louis cuts off, “still.”

He doesn’t want to hear about Dan and Liam, he doesn’t want to hear or feel or see anybody else, he just wants to be right here, hoisted up in Harry’s arms and looking down into those big beautiful green eyes of his. He may be overwhelmed with emotion, but he sure as fuck doesn’t feel one bit more for Harry right now than he always has. It’s always been like this. He just feels it a bit too intensely to control himself right in this very moment.

Which is why he does something as reckless as dip down and peck Harry on the lips.

They’ve done that before, but never sober, never when it wasn’t _goodbye_ or _hello_ and immediately followed up by doing the same to the next friend and the next after that. It’s chaste enough that Harry doesn’t really react, though, just keeps smiling up at Louis, chuckling a little, straining to hold all his weight, probably, but then Louis gets greedy; then Louis gets brave.

He dips down and kisses Harry again.

It lasts a bit longer this time, still closed-mouthed, still dry, but it makes a soft noise when they part and Harry’s smile’s gone frowny. Louis swallows hard, watching the crease between his brows, the uncertainty in his eyes, waiting to be put down or told off or just simply asked _what the fuck?_ , but it doesn’t happen.

So he takes advantage.

This time he nudges his nose at Harry’s first, then fits their mouths together, his own lips parting softly over Harry’s closed ones. A small huff falls from Harry’s nostrils and Louis swears he tilts a bit, that his mouth goes soft, pliant, so he presses a little harder, darts his tongue out and licks where Harry’s lips should be parting for him.

“Lou,” Harry half-chuckles into it, but he’s not pushing Louis off, he’s not throwing him to the ground or shouting for him to back off.

“Please,” Louis whispers, the bodily reaction to getting Harry’s lips on his own so strong he manages to drown out how pathetic he sounds, whimpering into his mouth like this, “please, just a little bit—”

Harry’s hands twitch under him, nails digging into the fabric of his trackies, and he doesn’t say anything, but doesn’t close his mouth either, and Louis slips his tongue in, tries to get Harry’s to respond, and then—

Then someone thumps onto the first step of the staircase and yells; “anyone naked or can I come down?”

Harry jerks right out of the kiss and laughs. “You’d love that, wouldn’t you?” he says, voice a bit scratchy, as he puts Louis down and pats his shoulders without looking at him.

Nick brings a stupid grin with him down the stairs. “Hey, I’m a taken man, what do you think of me?”

“Never know, never know,” Harry half-laughs, and his voice is just shit, and Louis’ ears are on fire and his legs feel as though they’ve forgotten how to carry his weight in the short space of time Harry did it for them. He wants to scream at Nick to get the fuck out, thinks to himself, _this is exactly why normal people don’t live in commune’s; normal people don’t like to get cockblocked in the privacy of their own homes_ , but he says nothing.

He just stares at the fluffy green carpet and tries to get his hands to stop shaking.

Nick walks down into the room and has a look around, chatting idly to Harry, who just chuckles or _yeah_ or _hm_ ’s in response. Part of Louis, a terribly insistent part of him, wants to stay right here and wait for Nick to go back up and then be pressed against the wall and kissed senseless, but it doesn’t happen that way.

“Your tea’s getting cold, by the way,” Nick says, once halfway up the stairs again, and that’s all it takes for Harry to leave with him. Louis follows, because staying down here on his own, slumping around and touching children’s toys, seems like an anticlimax of epic proportions.

Harry warms his tea in the microwave and asks Louis twice if he’s sure he doesn’t want it and _it’s fine, really, I can just make myself a new one_ , but Louis insists he doesn’t need one and then they watch telly for half an hour without touching. Louis could make the first move again, _would_ make the first move again, if it wasn’t for the fact that Harry seems to be actively avoiding his gaze, or just looking in his direction at all, seems to be purposely trying to make the most asexual conversation possible - _so_ , _d’you watch the game back home?_ and _changed your sheets while you were gone, but I forgot the fabric-softener so they might feel a bit dry_ and _Emmy and Camille made me watch a proper birthing video while you were gone and the woman shat herself while pushing, did you know that’s actually really common?_

When Louis says _I’m knackered_ and thanks Harry for what he did once more, and Harry just tells him _I’m glad you liked it_ and _goodnight_ without taking his eyes off of the telly, Louis regrets. Maybe he should’ve tried harder; made it more clear that it wasn’t just a spur of the moment, _thank you for this massive gesture_ -kind of thing. Maybe Harry wants this so much that the fear of rejection is scaring the shit out of him too.

Because he didn’t push Louis off, Louis reminds himself, as he lays down in bed that evening and licks over the lips that still throb just a little. He didn’t push Louis off at all.


	3. Chapter 3

The next day, Harry goes to work and Louis wakes, dresses and feeds the children, then takes them down to their new playroom. Aside from Eve falling on the pole-slide and screaming bloody murder, they have a brilliant time. It’s as fun for Louis as it is all the kids, finding and test-playing all the little knick-knacks he hadn’t noticed the first time around. That said, he’s constantly having to snap himself out of his head, constantly having to remind himself to be present, in the moment, do his job, not drop back into the tummy-rushing daydream that is the memory of last night.

He kissed Harry. He kissed Harry, in a moment’s emotional overwhelmedness, he kissed Harry and Harry kissed him back. Well, sort of. Harry didn’t push him off.

It isn’t like he’s a kid anymore. It isn’t like he expects this to mean that Harry’s been wanting this for bloody ages, that Louis could’ve kissed him at any moment these past couple years and he would’ve been elated. He’s not stupid. He wasn’t pushed off last night, but he has been before, and he’s not blind to the fact that Harry wasn’t quite as aggressive about the kiss as he was.

But. Fuck, his lips were so soft.

“Where’s your head at, babe?” Emmy asks him, sitting in the cosy-corner of the playroom and letting the twin girls rub and talk to her big belly. Louis, who thought he’d been playing pirates with the boys, realises he’s just been hanging off the pole-slide like a lazy overdressed stripper for the past thirty seconds.

“Oh, I— nowhere,” he says, quickly jumping away from the pole as Micky comes sliding feet-first toward his skull, “nowhere, I was just— stayed up on the net last night, stupid. Bit tired.”

She smiles, dropping her head back against the pillow propped up behind her. “Me too,” she sighs, “tossed and turned all night, my back’s killing me.”

“Want me to give you a rub?”

“Oh, would you?” she exclaims, so genuinely grateful that Louis doesn’t have it in him to regret offering. The twins waddle off toward the dollhouse and Louis settles into the beanbag chair behind Emmy and she hunches. “Thank you so much, darling, you’re incredible.”

“No problem,” Louis says, slipping his fingers up under the back of her sweater and digging them into her lower back, right where he knows her worst aches tend to sit. She gives a wincing moan in appreciation and he decides he’ll keep doing this until his thumbs ache like her back. “You’re carrying two of my best mate’s second child for them, you deserve all the backrubs in the bloody universe.”

“Well, since you weren’t up for it, _someone_ had to take another one for the team.”

“Hey, I wasn’t even asked,” Louis whines halfheartedly.

She pushes her long brown hair aside to grin back at him. “S’only cause Zayn’s too omega-envious to risk seeing a mix of yours and Liam’s kid come out of it.”

“True,” Louis chuckles, and then drives his thumbs in deeper circles at the bottom of her spine. She lets her head drop down between her shoulders, groaning.

“God, you’re so good at this,” she murmurs, voice slurring like she’s drunk with the relief, “I swear, if you weren’t a daycare-daddy, you could be a rich masseuse of some sort. You’re even better than Harry, and the guy’s got massive thumbs so that — ah, yeah, right there - that says quite a lot,” she says, and Louis just chuckles, not wanting to continue a conversation on the topic of Harry’s massive fingers right now, but she goes on still; “but you’ve got— ah, yeah - you’ve got that caring omega-gene to you, I suppose. Harry’s a bit too rough at times, don’t you think?”

“Wha’?”

“When he massages, he’s a bit too rough. With his hands. Harry. Don’t you think, or is that just me being a crybaby?”

“Ehm… I think his hands are fine,” Louis mutters, because he can’t really imagine a scenario in which Harry being rough with his hands would ever be too much. At least not the kind of too much that Louis would mind, anyway. “What about Camille?” he asks, just to talk about something other than Harry. It’s enough that he can’t do the same when it comes to thinking right now, and that’s driving him a bit insane. “She’s quite all right. Good at foot rubs.”

“Yeah, she’s second best to you, definitely,” Emmy agrees, dropping her head down further when Louis works his way up her spine, “reckon she’s getting a bit sick of it, though. Think she’s counting the hours till this baby’s out, even more so than I.”

“Yeah? Thought she liked - Elliot, don’t put that in your mouth! - thought she liked how much your boobs swell when you’re like this.”

“That’s probably about the only thing,” Emmy snorts. “She’s not too keen on the pregnant form in general, so. But I can’t really blame her, it isn’t my thing either. However big her boobs did get before she had Mick.”

“Christ, yeah, they were enormous toward the end, I remember.”

“Size of my head, I swear.”

Louis laughs.

“But it’s all right,” Emmy says after a moment of quiet massaging, “she went by Celeste’s this weekend and I had Greg over so it was fine. But, nothing’s as good as with her so I’m looking forward to getting back to being a one-passenger ride.”

Louis slips his hands out from underneath her shirt and moves them up to her shoulders instead, brushing her hair aside and driving his thumbs up the nape of her neck. “I’m still in awe of you two, by the - Erin, that’s not edible! - way. When it comes to that. You’re so modern.”

“We’re just us,” Emmy chuckles, but she still shoots a smug grin back at him, “new-age and chill.”

“Polyamorous lesbians popping out babies for gay men whilst living in a commune. Yeah, I’d say that’s pretty chill.”

“Don’t forget that I’m the supervising manager in Urban Outfitters when I’m not on maternity leave.”

“Oh yeah, of course, that too, you— Eve, get that crayon out of your nose!”

 

*

 

The anxiety-knot in his gut doesn’t get relieved till late evening and, by that time, it’s spread to his fingertips, clenched up his toes. Harry’s working late, according to Niall, who claims to have received a text from him sometime around noon, but doesn’t mention this before they’re all gathered at the dining table and Harry’s nowhere to be seen. Louis resists the urge to ask about it and instead stares at his plate until Micky, who’s sitting beside him, sticks two long beans into his mouth and asks if he looks like a _waltwus_. The laugh Louis gives at it comes out so screechy that Zayn frowns at him from the other end of the table and Kate asks if he’s choking on something.

After doing dishes with his assigned team of the night, he goes downstairs and draws ugly stickman-figures with Eve and Erin while Niall and Kate engage in half an hour’s much needed “quality time”. They thank him profusely before sprinting upstairs and locking their door behind them, but honestly, he’s relieved to get to spend a bit more time with the little ones. If he sat alone in his room, he’d be twiddling his twitching thumbs and listening for the front door and if he sat with the rest of the adults in the common room, he’d be ambushed with _are you all right?_ ’s and _you seem quiet tonight, Lou_ ’s and _you aren’t yelling at the telly or pissing Liam off, what’s wrong, are you dying?_ ’s

So, he’s on his knees at the drawing-station in the playroom with the twins when Harry finally does come home.

“Hey, guys,” he drawls, coming down the staircase, and Louis’ crayon cracks in the middle of his stickman-figures face, “you having fun?”

The twins exclaim _yes_ ’es and _come and see, I drawing you, Hawaii_ ( Harry ? ), but it takes Louis more than a second to swallow and steady his voice before he turns too.

It’s a mistake, turning. It’s a terrible mistake. Harry’s in dark grey slacks, tight over his thighs and bulge, a white button-down tucked under a black leather-belt and a blazer slung over one arm. Louis never did get over what he looked like in his work-attire.

“Hey,” he rasps, and Harry gives him a quick nod, just before he goes to free his hair from the bun he’s probably had it in all day and drops his head to shake the greasy chocolate-waves out.

“I drawing you,” Eve pants, punching at Harry’s shin when he’s finished with the hair and moved onto his cufflinks instead, “Haswin, I drawing you!”

“He can’t hear you, his head’s too far up,” Louis says, and Harry laughs.

She turns to frown at Louis, drawing flapping from her sticky little hand. There’s a smooth line of snot from her nostrils to her mouth that Louis’ itching to wipe. “You not so far up, Toppo,” she says.

“No,” Harry chuckles, “Toppo’s not so far up, is he?”

The kid turns to the tall bastard again and Louis flips him off, but Harry just dimples up and ignores him in favour of looking at her drawing. A wave of relief rushes through Louis’ veins, - they’re okay, they’re smiling and teasing each other, they’re okay - but it only lasts a second before Niall comes strolling down the stairs, red-cheeked and with his shirt on backwards. “Little ladies,” he sing-songs, “it’s time for beeed.”

Both twins whip around toward Louis, eyes blowing wide, like _save us from the evil bedtime-man!_ , but Louis just smiles and takes their drawings. “We’ll do some more in the morning,” he assures them as they start to whimper, “we’ll make a big, huge drawing of everyone who lives here, yeah?”

“Yes, now! Now!” they scream and Niall sighs exasperatedly and Louis mouths out _sorry_ , and then Niall hoists one little lady up on either arm and carries them up the stairs, consoling them with all the extra energy that comes with having just been nicely laid by mummy.

Which, inevitably, leaves Harry and Louis alone together.

“Good day at work?”

“Yeah,” Harry murmurs, incredibly enough still not done fiddling with his cufflinks, watching them like they’ll burst into flames if he looks anywhere else. If, for instance, he looks Louis in the eye. “Nothing special.”

Louis decides to leave the mess be and deal with it in the morning, slapping crayon-dust off on his already-smudged red skinnies and getting up with a groan loud enough to drown out the awkward silence for one blissful second.

But then, of course, Harry steps over to him and drops to his knees and says; “let me help.”

“Oh. Eh,” Louis wavers above him, watching as he starts to put crayon’s back in cups and stack drawings in drawers, “thanks, mate.”

“No problem.”

Instead of dropping down and helping Harry out, Louis turns and walks to the middle of the room where the kids have left an array of different toys and game-pieces out, and starts packing up. Sitting shoulder to shoulder with Harry just to sort crayons that he could do faster on his own feels like nothing but setting himself up for awkward accidental touches and stunted breathing.

He crawls about, tidying up slower than a turtle in heat, and doesn’t really hear Harry finishing up in the corner and walking closer, blame the fluffy carpet.

He doesn’t notice until he smells Harry’s presence within two feet of himself, but can’t hear him say a word. Can’t even hear him breathing.

He stills, glancing over his shoulder, phallically shaped foam-gun bullet trapped between his teeth.

Harry’s standing still, exactly two feet behind Louis and his sharp nose, scratching at his thighs, biting his lip. Holding his breath. His eyes don’t meet Louis’ for a very long moment, trapped down around his arse, or the back of his thighs, his knees where they bend, maybe. It’s not the first time he’s caught Harry looking, just checking out, just briefly, just instinct, just alpha.

It’s the first time after what happened yesterday.

“Hm?” Louis breathes out, just before he realises he’s still got the stupid dildo-bullet stuck between his lips. He spits it out. “Haz?”

“Yeah?” Harry says, blinking his gaze up to meet Louis’, eyes going so wide it’d be funny if Louis weren’t too focused on the flush in his cheeks. The bulge in his trousers.

“Were you looking at me?” he finds the courage to ask.

Harry swallows, throat working hard with it, clicking when his wet lips part. He coughs and laughs, too screechy. “No, I, uhm—” his gaze glides back down Louis’ body, a flash of heat moving with it. Louis swallows the last bit of shame he has in him and turns toward the bullet he dropped, arching his back a bit. Just enough that it’s obvious how pathetically easy it’d be for Harry to just— “ _Fuck_.”

Louis looks back at him, bullet between his lips again. “All right?”

“Yeah, I, eh—” his gaze runs over Louis, then quickly flicks back to the floor, and he says, “you’ve, uhm— I stepped on that. On the floor.”

“Oh.” Louis turns and, to Harry’s luck because he’s a lying piece of shit and a bad one at that, there _is_ actually a tiny plastic doll-shoe right by his foot. “Sorry.”

“S’not your fault,” Harry rasps, and when Louis crawls close enough to smell him proper, he presses his knees together, squirming.

Louis picks the shoe up, chucks it over his shoulder and hopes it lands in the right box. He looks up at Harry.

Harry looks down at him. “Take that thing out of your mouth,” he chuckles, much too breathy. “You look like a slag.”

Louis spits it out and grins up at him again. “What’s so wrong with being a slag? I’d say it’s pretty liberating.”

“Yeah, but— we’re in the kid’s playroom.”

“Yeah, and that thing is part of a kid’s toy, _you’re_ the one making it sexual.”

“Yeah, well, kid’s toy by day, dildo in your mouth by night.”

Louis can’t hold a barky laugh in. Harry’s face eases up a bit, like he’s been let off, like he’s relieved at that. Louis feels his stomach sink a bit. “Haz,” he murmurs, ducking his head and scratching at Harry’s sock, “you—”

“Why are you crawling around like this?” Harry kicks out at him, jittery, “you look like a dog, get up.”

“Do you remember last night? When, uhm—” Louis gets up on his knees, in face-height with Harry’s crotch now, “when— what the fuck happened there? When we were—”

“Please,” Harry cuts through, something desperate in his eyes suddenly, something dark, “can you get the fuck off of your knees?”

He’s scratching his thighs again, dangerously close to an area that Louis is, also, dangerously close to. “Why?” he asks, gently laying both hands out atop of Harry’s shifty feet. “What’s the matter?”

“You look like something out of a bloody porno,” Harry hisses, “I feel like I’m about to jizz on your face or something, can you just—”

“Are you?” Louis half-laughs, feeling defiant suddenly, feeling powerful with how out of control Harry looks. He’s never felt this attractive, not around Harry. “Are you close to—”

Harry grabs him by the back of the hair and yanks, hard. “Get the _fuck_ up.”

“Ow!” Louis cries out, to heavy to be effectively yanked upward, but instead tumbling facefirst into Harry’s thigh. “Calm down, what’s the matter with you?”

“Please get up. Louis, please get up, you look—”

Louis looks up. “I can’t stop thinking about last night.”

“Louis—”

“You didn’t push me off,” he pleads, voice lost half it’s weight suddenly, “you didn’t, why didn’t you if—”

And then something snaps behind Harry’s eyes.

He growls, tugs Louis’ head back by the back of his hair, then starts to frantically yank at his own belt buckle. Louis hardly has a chance to register what he’s doing before he’s pulled his dick out, fat and hard like Louis’ never seen it before, near-purple at the tip. “Fuckin’ he—”

Harry pushes him face-first into it. “Okay, come on,” he says, head popping past Louis’ unexpecting lips, fucking in further, “come on, make me come, then, you wanted it—”

He sounds almost strangerly, breathless and hoarse, more desperate than aggressive, even as he growls between his words. His cock hits the back of Louis’ throat and Louis isn’t prepared, wasn’t prepared for this at all, not so fast, not so rough, so he gags and pops off, coughing and spitting at the floor, eyes watering.

“Fuck,” Harry breathes, and then his feet disappear from Louis’ blurry vision, “fuck, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to do that, I, Lou, I— can I get you some water?”

Louis wipes at his eyes and looks up at him, finding nothing but guilt, wide eyes and wobbling lips, “no,” he says, “sorry, that was just a little fast for me, can we— can you kiss me, maybe? Can we kiss first, then I’ll give you head?”

With everything he has in him, right in that moment, Harry’s cock still out, it’s precome still tasting bitter on Louis’ tongue, Louis expects Harry to say yes. He wanted this, he wanted it so much he couldn’t wait to get his dick in, he wants Louis too.

So, naturally, it feels a bit like stepping into a pool and falling twelve feet onto cold concrete when Harry swallows, starts to stumble backwards toward the stairs and says; “I can’t, Lou, I— I’m sorry. I can’t, this was a mistake, I’m so sorry.”

 

*

 

Five minutes later, Louis’ finished tidying up the last of the toys on trembling hands. His throat still hurts a bit, but it’s nothing compared to his stomach. They’ve been friends forever. They’ve been the sort of platonic friends that’d snuggle and eat food off each other’s plates at restaurants and even share a shower just to save time that one time they were late for their plane. They’ve never been the sort of friends who kiss. They’ve never been the sort of friends to take advantage of a shared hotel bedroom after a night out on the piss or the sort of friends to help each other through heats or ruts.

So, just the kiss last night in itself was massively overwhelming. This— having Harry snap like an elastic band that’d been stretched too far for far too long and finally gave in, or up; having Harry cram his dick down his throat after years upon years of laughing and shrugging out of hugs when Louis gave his bum a friendly squeeze - this is— well, it’s definitely not nice being left here alone on the floor afterwards.

He’s attracted to Louis. He’s got to be. Even if just sexual, even if just instinct, even if just a looks-thing, he’s attracted. There’s potential for more. They know they fit so well on every other level than this. The only thing that’s ever held them back from being the best thing ever together was Harry’s lack of attraction. Or so Louis thought. Now he doesn’t know what the hell he thinks.

He goes upstairs with every intention of finding Harry, talking it out, assuring him he feels the attraction too and he’s really more than happy about the idea of getting his mouth fucked if that’s where it’s headed, but maybe, just with a second to brace himself first.

He gets stopped in the kitchen by Zayn. “Hey, Lou, I was looking for you.”

“I’m actually headed up to bed, I’m kind of knackered right now,” Louis mutters, not in the mood for a late-night spliff and slurred philosophical bullshittery, as much as he does love that.

Zayn nods, but doesn’t move out of his way. “It’s just— you totally don’t have to, but Mick’s refusing to go to sleep right now. He wants to show you something and he’s too hyped up, I, ehm— it’ll only take two seconds.”

Louis bites his lip. “Fuck,” he sighs. Harry can wait two seconds. “Okay, yeah, okay. Yeah, course.”

Micky’s solved his rubik’s cube.

Which actually does take Louis’ mind off of Harry for a second. “Are you shi- kidding me?” he exclaims, and the boy nods, beaming with pride as Louis inspects the little toy he’s been losing sleep over ever since he saw Emmy solve it in less than a minute, “that’s incredible, bud, that’s massive, christ, I’m so—” he shakes his head and looks up at the kid, then high-fives him, “way to go, lad, up top!”

He ends up spending fifteen minutes in the room with Micky, trying to solve the rubik’s cube himself and watching the kid’s head grow bigger and bigger the longer it takes Louis to fail at outsmarting a six year old. In the end, he gives up and admits defeat. By then, for which Zayn almost kisses him, he’s tired the boy out.

“I’m in love with you,” Zayn says, “I swear, I want to adopt you, please never leave us.”

“Love you too, mate,” Louis chuckles, stepping out in the hall again and glancing at the stairs behind Zayn, his stomach beginning to clench up again. He’s going to go directly to Harry’s room. He’s not going to chicken out, he’s going to go and get what he wants and if he doesn’t get it, well then, at least he won’t have to wonder ’what if’. “G’night.”

“Night, Lou.”

Louis heads up the stairs, hand clammy and squeaky as he drags it up the railing, and marches to Harry’s door. _Like ripping off a band aid. Walk in there. Tell him how you feel. Hope it’s reciprocated. Course it’s reciprocated. He shoved his cock down your throat not fifty minutes ago._

In his anxiety-fueled state of determination, Louis forgets to knock and just pushes the door open.

And— oh.


	4. Chapter 4

They’re not in bed and they’re not even close to being fully nude, especially not him, but they’re so close Louis can smell them. Well, him. His knot. They’re up against the wall, her with one foot tiptoed on the floor, the other hooked around his waist, little tank-top pushed up over her tits and the loose plaid boxers she was wearing as nightshorts pooled around her grounded foot. He’s got his face pressed up against the wall, obstructed by hers, one hand on her thigh to tilt her into his thrusts, the other tightly squeezed around her breast. It’s rough, hard, knocking the wall, her hands fisting up in the back of his work-shirt.

Camille notices Louis before Louis has a chance to snap out of his shock-state and back out of the door.

“Shit.” She slaps at Harry’s back, but he doesn’t stop, doesn’t even seem to hear or notice her. “Harry—”

“Almost there, just a little bit longer, I—”

Louis backs away before seeing much more of it. From the sounds of things, after he leaves, they just continue. He can’t really blame her; she’s not doing anything wrong. She doesn’t know how Louis feels and she’s allowed to fuck who she wants, as far as her own relationship goes. He isn’t sure whether he has the right to blame Harry either, but he doesn’t care; he’s angry. He’s really fucking angry and he feels really fucking small.

He feels a bit like a hole on legs, actually. Like, _right, this won’t do, he’s got a gag-reflex, onto the next one_.

All of this feels a bit surreal. Like it’s just a bad dream, like he’ll wake up in the morning and Harry will be back to the playroom-creating, snuggle-loving, non-throat fucking friend that he knows. Harry isn’t this guy; he’s never been this guy. Sure, he fucks around a lot and he’s not too keen on official, exclusive relationships in general, but Louis had always attributed that to the fact that he was an unusually goodlooking young guy with all the options in the world and he wasn’t going to settle down for just anything. He’d always thought, well, _maybe one day_.

He goes to sleep, still too shocked to understand.

 

*

 

When he wakes the next morning, it’s from a nightmare. Well, a dream-replay of what he walked in on last night. He can’t get the image of his hand on her breast out of his mind. Or the thrusts of his hips. The look of his cock, right up close, painfully hard, just for Louis. Well, in that one little moment before he went up to her anyway.

He makes sure not to look up when Camille passes him in the kitchen in the morning, thanks fuck he’s got these four kids to distract himself with. Harry’s in the dining room when Louis walks the kids in, but he’s on his way out, luckily, and Louis reciprocates his _good day_ with a head-bowed _‘too_.

When he’s in the playroom later that day and Emmy comes down to sit, he considers mentioning what happened. He doesn’t know why because he’s sure Camille’s already told her and if not, he’s sure Emmy doesn’t care either way. She’s unusual like that. He could say it, just conversationally, just as a casual guess-what-I-accidentally-walked-in-on-last-night kind of thing, but he’s pretty certain he wouldn’t be able to keep a straight face. He’s pretty certain the crooks of his mouth would start twitching or his voice would go all wonky and he’d end up with Emmy tilting her head and frowning and asking, voice ever so stained with concern, _you all right?_

“You all right?” he does receive anyway.

It’s not Emmy who asks, though, it’s Dan, when Louis’ just been up to cut the kids some fruit and make himself a cup of tea. He traps Louis between the cellar-door and the kitchen, feigning innocence with that smile he’s got on. Like he’s trying to make friends. Like he’s trying to make amends.

“Yeah, sure, why wouldn’t I be?” Louis mutters, balancing his mountain of watermelon and apples and banana’s as well as trying not to spill scolding hot tea down his hand. “You?” he quickly adds, before Dan begins to answer his rhetorical question.

“Yeah, I’m good. I’m good,” he says. Slowly, his smile turns impish. Louis just manages to think _oh, christ, here we go again_ , before he adds; “think Harry got laid last night.”

Louis stills. “What?”

“I don’t know, but I heard noises on my way to the loo. Pretty clear what was going on in there.”

Louis shifts weight, glancing at the door behind Dan. “I’ve got to bring this down to the kids,” he says dryly. “And it’s really none of your business to go around listening at the doors. A closed door is a closed door for a reason.”

“Well, it wasn’t even bloody closed, that’s the best part,” Dan snort-laughs, turning after Louis as Louis inches past him, “was half-open when I walked back. Caught a nice glimpse of his arse and everything, the shameless bastard.”

Louis coughs loudly. He may or may not have been the one who left the door open when he left them last night. Nevertheless, Dan’s deriving an aggravating amount of amusement from talking about this. “Stop looking in people’s bedrooms,” Louis says, fighting to open the doorknob with his elbow. A piece of watermelon drops off the plate and hits the floor, but he ignores it. “And stop gossiping, it’s a nasty habit.”

 

*

 

What’s also a nasty habit is the one Harry and Louis fall into later that day. Avoiding eye-contact. When Harry comes home from work, he greets everyone, Louis too, and he laughs when Louis jokes about something that happens on the telly, but they don’t once look in each other’s direction, not even at the dining table, not even when they bump into each other in the loo in the evening.

They just stand there, brushing their teeth, because leaving in the middle of it would seem too obvious, in complete silence. Which used to be okay, a week ago. Silence wasn’t even something Louis noticed around Harry. Now it feels palpable, almost, like a big invisible cloud, taking up all the space in the room, slowly suffocating them.

Louis spits in the sink before he’s hardly brushed a full five seconds, then turns toward the door, takes one step in it’s direction and gets his wrist snatched up by a big hand. “Lou.”

“What?” He doesn’t turn.

Harry’s thumb presses in where his pulse is starting to pound. “Are we all right?”

“Yeah,” Louis says, just because, and Harry lets go of his hand, but stays so still and quiet that Louis knows he’s still waiting for more. “Yeah, we’re all right, why wouldn’t we be?”

“Yeah, I— can you turn? Just, can you look at me for a second?”

Louis lets out a ragged breath and turns. He forces a smile that Harry would be calling out on it’s insincerity right now if he weren’t too busy chewing at his own lip and frowning.

“We don’t have to talk about it,” Louis says. “We— it doesn’t have to be a thing, now. I get it if you’re not into it, with me, I get it if I trapped you in a moment and it just sort of happened and— I get it. It doesn’t have to be a thing,” he says, and then, because he’s so stupidly gone for Harry that the thought of not being a hundred percent certain about the rejection kills him, he adds; “if you aren’t attracted to me, it’s all right.”

Harry presses his lips together. He nods.

And— that’s it. That’s his silent _yes_ , right there, that’s his nicest way of saying, _I’m sorry, I’m just not, I can’t help it_ , and Louis hates himself for being brave. This is exactly why people build up walls around them, this is exactly why people don’t put themselves out there, this is being six years old and finally bringing yourself to look under the bed and then actually _finding_ the monster underneath. This just hurts.

“Yeah,” Louis hears himself breathe out, “that’s all right. We’ve never been more than—” his voice cracks and Harry flinches at it and Louis feels the most pathetic he ever has, “we’ve never been more than friends, so. It’s all right, it was me— it was just me being stupid.”

Harry’s lips are quivering. “Louis—”

“No, it’s all right,” Louis insists, throwing a hand out dismissively and turning just before his eyes dampen up, “it’s— I’m just going to go to bed now. I’m—” Harry reaches out for him, but Louis shrugs him off. “Can you just— maybe not touch me? Right now?”

Harry backs off immediately. “Sorry. I love you.”

“Don’t say that. Right now. It’s— fuck.” Louis leaves the loo with that, rushing down to his room and locking the door once he’s safe by himself.

That’s enough, then, he thinks as he yanks off his trousers and curls his unattractive self up under the duvet, that’s the last time. That’s enough.

 

*

 

Not two weeks later, he finds himself at the commune’s first big party. Well, most of the commune. Ziam took Emmy and all the kids on a weekend-trip to a massive water park and Nick went to visit friends in L.A., but Harry, Niall and Kate, Camille, Louis and Dan are all present. Somewhere in the house.

Louis himself is sitting on one of the common-room couches with a glass of jack and coke in hand - far from his first drink of the night - pretending to be able to hear a red-headed girl tell him about her upcoming art exhibition downtown. If he leaned in a little or just bloody concentrated, he might actually be able to; the music is loud, but not _that_ loud. He doesn’t, though, because he’s only talking to her because she pressed herself in between him and Dan, who’s been crawling all over him all night, and he’s using her as a buffer. Mean, yes. Necessary, yes, also.

“What do you do?!” he thinks he lip-reads her scream.

“Children,” Louis screams back, and she frowns and he realises how odd that sounded. He puts his drink down. Enough of that, then. “I mean, I—” he leans in closer, “I take care of children! Like, I have a daycare. Daycare!”

“Ah!” she nods, smiling too widely, “cool! I love children!”

“Me too!”

“Cool!”

“Yeah!” They smile at each other for a moment, just nodding. “Do you like animals?!”

“Yeah!”

“And food?!”

Her eyes blow wide. “Oh my god, yes!” she screams, “we have so much in common!”

“Do you like sleeping when you’re tired?!” Louis mimics her wide-eyed expression, “and breathing when you’re running out of air?!”

“Yes and yes! Oh my god, we’re like, siamese or something!”

“Oh,” dear lord, save me, “my god, yes!” Louis squeals.

Someone yells out _Abby!_ and the girl turns and Louis seizes the moment and jumps up. He takes his drink off the table again, intending to go and offer it to someone as a conversation-starter, preferably a hot guy. He steps into the kitchen and finds it crowded, people sitting all over the counter, the island and the bar-stools. He spots a fit bloke he hasn’t met before and probably won’t ever meet again, which is exactly what he was looking for.

The bloke is wavering in the corner, alone, perfect, and Louis slides right up to his side. “Drink?”

“Eh,” the bloke glances down the at the half-empty glass, then at Louis’ face, then smiles, “thanks, mate.”

“Louis.”

The guy shakes his hand and tells Louis his name, but Louis doesn’t hear it because his attention’s been stolen. Through the windows facing the backyard, he can make out two figures in the dark. Most people outside are on the patio, but these two aren’t, they’re out by the playhouse, all alone. They’re shielded by the playhouse from the patio-people, but they’re viewable from this window; they’re recognizable in the dark, only because Louis helped her put her long blonde hair up like that and Harry pick out that ugly neon-pink t-shirt.

He and Harry aren’t quite back to where they were before, but they’ve been moving toward it. They’ve been trying. Neither want to lose their best friend and Louis can’t really blame Harry for not being attracted to him, that’s not a choice of his, that just is what it is. And what it is is fucking miserable. He’s overheard Harry bring a bootycall home one night and he’s seen Camille’s knickers in Harry’s bed and noticed it every time they’ve shared looks, separated from the group and arrived back ten minutes later, thinking they’ve been ever so discrete and sly about it.

He’s not watched them since the first time he walked in. He’s not been drunk around them since he found out they were going at it either, so maybe that’s what makes this time different.

They’re kissing, for a second, and then she’s on her knees, getting her mouth fucked. Then she’s up again, up against the playhouse, he’s sucking on her tits like he’s trying to fucking breastfeed off them, fingering her, then he’s turning her around, pulling her knickers down from under her dress and dicking in. They fuck for a while, then she comes, Louis thinks, and then he spits on his fingers and switches to the other hole and then he comes too, definitely. Then they pull their kits back on and return to the pack like nothing.

The bloke Louis meant to chat up has abandoned him, understandably, and Louis’ left with a terribly tight chest and an awkward boner.

He wanders through a few more rooms, mixing drinks off of random bottles and getting himself so drunk he’s seeing two of everyone.

“Hey, there,” someone chuckles, coming up and grabbing him round the shoulders, “you’re awfully pissed.”

“No, I’m not,” Louis grumbles, but he’s stumbling too much to want to push the guy off, “I’m just going to bed, I’m—” he glances to his side and blinks a few hundred times to concentrate. Right. “Dan.”

“Louis,” Dan grins, “let me walk you up.”

Louis frees himself of Dan’s grip, then takes one step and nearly falls flat on his face. Luckily, Dan jumps and catches him. Louis lets himself be helped up the stairs after that.

“It _is_ you,” Dan says when he’s supporting Louis on his way down the second floor hall, “thought it might be some other slag down there, but no. God, you smell incredible.”

“Wha’, I— whazzit—”

Dan leads him into his bedroom and lays him down on the bed. “Who’ve you been hooking up with?”

Louis rolls over on the bed, facepalming the pillow. “Can you get me szome water, pleasze, I—”

Dan growls. “You’re wet, aren’t you? Fuck, you smell— who got you so wet?”

“Water,” Louis groans, slapping a hand back to feel at his own arse. It’s not much, but it’s from lurking on Harry earlier tonight. It’s mostly dried up, but an alpha like Dan’s probably still affected by it when alone together in this little room. “You szhould leave.”

He thinks Dan obliges and he closes his eyes, head spinning, but he’s hardly dozed off before he hears a clonk.

“There,” Dan says, voice hoarse. Louis blinks and sees a glass of water on the nightstand.

“Oh,” he pushes his rubbery arms off on the pillow and reaches for the glass, but Dan takes it for him and sits down on the side of the bed.

“Here,” he says, feeding the water into Louis’ mouth.

Louis doesn’t object, feels too out of it to do much else but let the cool liquid glide down his throat and hope it won’t come right back up again. There’s a hand running up and down his side, consoling at first, but dipping lower and lower each time it goes down. When Louis pulls away from the glass and Dan puts it back on the nightstand, Dan’s hand is placed firmly on the back of his thigh.

“I’m, I’m going to szleep now, Zan… Dan,” Louis slurs out, kicking weakly to get his heavy hand off and turning over to face away from him. “Thankzs for the… helping me and... goodnight.”

The bed dips, but Dan doesn’t leave, because Louis hears a low rumbling behind him, a light version of a growl, and then, “you don’t want me to help you out of your clothes?”

“No.”

Louis’ so close to sleep that he keeps dipping in and out, trying to keep awake long enough to hear Dan leave. His eyes have just dropped closed when he feels the mattress move behind him and an arm link around his stomach. “Let me cuddle you asleep.”

The arm is too heavy, weighing down on his churning stomach, and Louis doesn’t want the hot-breathed growl that gets pressed into the nape of his neck or the twitching bulge to his bum either. “No,” he groans, slapping back at the arm, “just, just go, its— sz’fine, just…”

His eyes droop again and he’s struggling to keep track of what’s happening around him, keep control of his own limbs. He rolls over to get the heavy arm off of his stomach, shoves at it till it lands somewhere up around his own face, which is a relief, but then the hand cups his face, tilting it sideways, and he gets a pair of wet lips pressed to his own.

“You’re so sexy…”

Louis wriggles his face away from the kiss, but gets a few more sloppy ones smacked around his mouth so he turns over again, away from Dan.

It’s peaceful for a second. There’s no movement at all, no growls, no sloppy kisses or arms on his stomach. He starts to drift off, everything going black, blacker, the noise of the party downstairs tuning out and he’s going and he’s gone and he’s—  

He’s being cuddled again. There’s an arm snaked around his stomach again, up under his shirt, another rested between his thighs, and there’s a bulge pressed against the fabric of his trousers, there’s someone growling in their sleep, licking at his neck, dry-humping him lightly.

But that’s not what woke him.

It’s the door that’s been slammed right open.

“What the fuck?!” Harry screams, and Louis hardly has a chance to turn before Harry’s grabbed Dan by the back of the shirt and dragged him backwards out of bed. Dan wakes as his body thumps hard against the floor.

Louis, who has no concept of how long he’s been out, sits up in bed, a pounding head-ache greeting him as he does. “What’s going on?” he rasps.

“Did you fuck?!” Harry shouts, first at Louis, then at Dan, “did you fuck him?!”

“What, I…”

“I saw him at the fuckin’ party before he disappeared, he was pass-out drunk, what the fuck are you doing?!” Harry drops to his knees, both of them bracing Dan’s hips and slaps him across the face. “What the fuck are you doing, taking advantage, you fucking—”  

“I—”

Harry slams a fist into the side of Dan’s face and Louis flinches away, but then Harry does it again and Dan groans and Harry does it again and Louis realises he’s got to say something, so he screams; “he didn’t do anything! Harry, he didn’t fuck me, he didn’t— he just layed there.”

Harry’s head snaps up to look at Louis. His hair’s wild around his face, eyes dark and fiery, nostrils flared. His neon-pink t-shirts crawled up to the mid of his stomach and there’s been some sort of fluid spilled down the front.

He looks back down at Dan when Dan starts to croak out some words. “What’s that?”

“I didn’t do anything, he asked me to lay with him till he fell asleep, I swear, I didn’t touch him like that,” Dan is blabbering, whimpering pathetically.

Which— “I didn’t ask you for shit,” Louis shouts, and Harry’s head snaps up again, “you crawled in yourself, you were— you were kissing on me, I remember, you were—”

“Did he try anything?!”

“No, I— he kissed me, I think. Just that, and he crept in here, slept in here, I think, fuck, my head…”

“Well, you stunk like fuckin’ slick, most alpha’s would’ve knotted you on the spot, you—” Harry silences Dan with another fits across the face.

He jumps off of him, hand twitching and covered in blood, then growls down at the pathetic mess on the floor and grabs him, hauls him up. “Apologise,” he shouts, shoving Dan in the back, “apologise to him.”

Dan’s nose is bleeding heavily, one of his eyes closed and swollen.

“Harry, it’s okay, I—”

“No, it’s not fucking okay, he’s a piece of shit,” Harry cuts through, shoving Dan again, “apologise,” he growls, “apologise or I swear to god, I will beat the living _shit_ —”

“Sorry!” Dan cries out, “sorry, I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I just, you smelled—”

“Don’t talk about his scent, you disrespectful cunt,” Harry shouts, then shoves him towards the door, continuously with each step he stumbles forward, “if Nick wants to keep taking you back after all these stunts, then I can’t stop him, trust me, I’ve tried, but you do not touch Louis, you do not _fucking_ touch him.”

Harry’s still shouting all the way down the hall, about packing Dan’s shit up and _you sure as fuck aren’t sleeping anyway near his room tonight_ and _tomorrow, you’re going to tell Nick everything or I will, you piece of shit_ and a whole lot of growling.  

 

*

 

Louis doesn’t fall asleep again for a long while. He sits in his bed, listening to every sound in the hall; Harry shoving Dan around, Harry calling a cab to bring Dan to a shitty nearby motel to sleep, Harry telling Camille, Niall, Kate, anyone who comes by, what the ’vile cunt’s done. From what Louis can hear, which really shouldn’t surprise him at this point, Dan and Nick are very much _not_ in an open relationship and this is very much _not_ the first time Dan has acted as though they were.

Eventually, the noise dials down. The music’s stopped, the guest have left or passed out around the house, Niall and Harry have ushered (shoved) Dan out of the house and now the only thing Louis can hear is the two of them muttering to each other just outside the room.

“No, I wouldn’t want him sleeping in the same house as Kate,” Niall’s agreeing, “I totally understand, mate, if he’d jumped into bed with her like that, I’d have beat the living shit out of him too. I mean, I know you and Lou aren’t— but still. It’s Lou, so. It’s sort of the same to you, innit. Well, the closest to the same anyway.”

“Yeah,” Harry huffs, like that’s a given, and Louis doesn’t know what to feel. It’s been a long night.

He lies down as Niall and Harry stop talking and start walking, but just as he’s closed his eyes, his bedroom door clicks open. Harry closes it carefully and pads across the carpet to place what sounds like a bottle of water on Louis’ nightstand. He stands for a moment, still, and Louis feels like he should open his eyes, make it known that he isn’t actually sleeping, but then he feels a big hand brush over his face. Harry pads his thumb under Louis’ eye and knuckles at his ear, all so gentle, all so sweet that Louis’ stomach curls in on itself.

When Harry scratches a hand through his hair, Louis can’t help but purr and let his eyes flutter open.

Harry blinks, but then just smiles, slow and affectionate. “You all right?” he asks, voice heart-flutteringly soft compared to the one he’s been yelling up and down the halls with the past couple hours.

“Yeah,” Louis breathes, “he really didn’t do anything to— he didn’t try and mount me or—”

“Listen, he’s a piece of shit and he’s always been that. He wants his cake and to eat it too. He wants a monogamous relationship because he wants to own his omega and be the only one to have them, but he also wants to go and fuck other people. He’s been ogling you fucking constantly, I’ve had to pull him aside so many times before this, you’ve no idea. This was just, like— final drop, so.”

“Oh.”

Harry runs a finger down the length of Louis’ nose. “Anyway, I’m not going to tell Nick not to take him back because that’s never worked before, but I’m going to talk to the others and make it clear he’s not welcome here anymore. Niall’s already agreed, you can’t trust a prick like that around your omega’s.”

 _Your omega’s_. Louis doesn’t comment. He doesn’t hope, for a stupid second, that it’s a Freudian slip. “Love you.”

“Love you too, Lou,” Harry says without a second’s hesitation, “and I’ve— I’m sorry that I can’t, like… give you everything you want, but—”

“Harry—”

“But you mean more to me than anyone else. Just know that. You really do. More than anyone I’ve ever fucked.”

Harry leans down and presses a kiss to Louis’ cheek and noses into his ear, then kisses it too. His scent is too good this close and Louis whimpers at the touch of his soft, soft lips on his skin. “You can fuck me too,” he whispers, “if you want. Anytime you want.”

“Lou,” Harry whines, parting his teeth over Louis’ cheekbone.

“Anytime. Any way, any hole, any where, you can have—”

Harry groans and bites his cheekbone, hard enough that Louis winces and slaps at his face. Harry pulls away then, pupils dilated, nostrils flared. “Sorry,” he says, “but I’m not— I don’t want that, not like that. Not with you.”

Louis nods, pressing his lips together as he swallows at the hard lump in his throat. “Just with everybody else.”

“No, I— come to me if there’s anything, Lou, _anything_. Just— not that, okay?” he stumbles backwards toward the door, ripping a hand through his hair, “just not that. Not with me,” he says, “sleep well, Lou.”

“Yeah, you too,” Louis murmurs, but doesn’t sleep very well at all that night.

Especially not after he goes to the loo a few hours later and sees some random Grindr-boy sneaking out of Harry’s room. Just everybody but Louis, then. 


	5. Chapter 5

A couple days after the incident, the last of Dan’s shit gets thrown in a car and sent to wherever it is he’s staying these days. As long as it isn’t here, Harry doesn’t give a flying fuck. When Nick came home from L.A. abruptly, having received a text from Dan that he’d been in a fight with the housemates and they needed to move out, quickly, without speaking to anyone at all first, Harry sat him down and told him everything. It was the only right thing to do.

As always, Nick took it hard. First, he wouldn’t believe it, first he marched down into the playroom and pulled Louis aside and accused him of doing shit Harry knows Louis wouldn’t ever dream of; coming onto Dan, begging him for a kiss and a cuddle, luring him with the smell of his own slick. Harry pulled them apart and told Nick sternly that Louis doesn’t sleep around like that, much less sleep with other people’s boyfriends, then made Nick apologise because assuming something like that about someone like Louis is fucking disrespectful and Louis isn’t the type to demand apologies so sometimes Harry has to do it for him, if it’s due.

Anyway, Nick said this was the last time, like he always says, and Harry agreed that it should be, like he always does. The difference this time, of course, is that Harry has the chance to keep an eye on Nick, be there for him when he’s vulnerable and make sure he doesn’t invite Dan back; even if he wants to; even if he begs to. Dan sure as fuck isn’t coming anywhere near Louis ever again.

Harry isn’t either, it seems.

Ever since that night, he’s been keeping a distance. It’s only meant as self-preservation, Harry thinks, and for that he really can’t blame Louis. It’s only meant to help off these inconvenient feelings, to re-establish platonic boundaries, to get back to where they were before they took things too far. Before Harry lost his grip and got selfish. He’d thought, hoped, that those one or two moments of recklessness could be survived, that they weren’t detrimental enough to make Louis pull away from not just physical affection, but everything else too. All of Harry, in general.

But he’s fucked up, he knows. He’s fucked up worse than he ever has with Louis and he hopes to fucking god it’ll mend itself and Louis will come back to him, in a way Harry knows how to handle. In the way that they’ve always been good at it.

Right now, he won’t hardly look Harry in the eye.

“I spoke to Louis about it again,” Nick tells Harry one evening, when they’re sitting in the common-room and Louis’ just walked through with a nervous twitch soon as he saw Harry and then an awkward nod and a thin-lipped smile. Maybe he meant to bring his tea in here and sit, but saw Harry and made up that he was just coming to get the book on the coffee-table that doesn’t even belong to him. Maybe not. “I feel so fucking stupid.”

“Huh?”

Nick blinks his gaze up from his tea. “Were you listening?”

“Yeah.”

“I said, I feel so fucking stupid,” Nick repeats anyway, smiling softly, “Louis wasn’t lying, you’re right. But fuck, I just feel— how can I have spent so many years with someone like that? How can I have sat there and been so stupidly devoted to someone who literally doesn’t have one ounce of respect for me in his body?” he shakes his head, sniffling a little as he drops his gaze down in his tea again, “like, I get that he doesn’t love me. I get that, I do,” he says on a cracked-up little voice, “but we’ve been… I held him for three days as he sobbed after his mum passed and then— it’s just beyond me. That he… I can’t understand it. I’d never, ever do something like that to him, ever.”

He’s crying now, silent save for the odd little gasp and sniffle.

“I know,” Harry says, “he’s not worth your time. He really isn’t. You know what he is? He’s the sort of person who’s one hundred percent fully capable of feeling sympathy - just not for anybody other than himself. It’s poisonous and he’s never going to change. I hope you don’t take him back, ever. If you do, I won’t regret talking shit about him this time.”

Nick chuckles a little, then wipes under his eyes with the back of his wrist. “Louis didn’t deserve that either.”

“No.”

“I feel so terrible for thinking he’d— it’s just cause it makes me blind sometimes, I think. Cause I do still,” he swallows hard, smiles bitterly, “I do still love him. That’s the worst part. That’s the most painful part, I suppose. So, I suppose I… you try and convince yourself that it’s somebody else’s fault, cause— facing up to it, that I’ve just got terrible, terrible judgement and I’ve just wasted the past six years of my life, it’s—”

“Yeah,” Harry reaches across and pets his hand, “I know, mate. But sometimes people, - people like Dan - they’re so good at feeling sorry for themselves that they actually genuinely believe they’re good people. Which makes it easier for other people to believe it too. You’re not stupid. You’ve just been sucked in by a fucking whirlpool of scum, that’s all.”

Nick chuckles through his tears. “Whirlpool of scum.”

“Happens to the best of us.”

They sit for a bit, Nick turning his hand in Harry’s and Harry going with it, curling his own around it and squeezing.

“And it’s such a fucking blow to the ego, as well,” Nick sighs eventually, “I know I should know by now that it’s nothing to do with me not being… a good enough omega or whatever. That it’s just him being a fucking sex addict—”

“With no moral compass to match.”

“— yeah, but it’s still… It’s probably why I went straight to blaming Louis. I always do that and it’s so fucking stupid. I just— every time it’s happened, every single time he’s gone elsewhere despite promising he’d get better, I feel a little less attractive.”

“Oh, Nick—”

Nick lifts his head and smiles, then dries his under-eyes again. “It’s all right, it’s just— and Louis’ so young and so fit and it’s always… it’s always bloody younger ones, fitter ones, people who won’t really have him and then he comes back and settles for me—”

“Well, that’s over now,” Harry cuts through, squeezing his hand and leveling him a stern look, “right, love? You’re done settling for him, now. And it _is_ you, by the way - who’s settling. _You’re_ settling for less by being with a piece of shit like him and you deserve better, so. Promise me, yeah?”

Nick licks over his lips, then sighs, slowly, and nods.

“Good,” Harry says, padding his thumb over Nick’s hand, “don’t want to have to hurt my fist over someone who really doesn’t deserve anyone’s time, again.” Nick nods, but Harry still adds; “and you know I’ll have to. Again. Cause he _will_ do it again if you take him back. He did the last time, and the time before that and the time before that, he’ll—”

“Yeah. Yeah. It’s over, I promise,” Nick says, getting up and pulling Harry with, “we’re never, ever, ever getting back together.”

“Like, _ever_.”

They walk upstairs together hand in hand. Louis’ in his room, some movie playing on his laptop from the sounds of it, and most of the other’s are either in bed or getting ready to be. Harry wonders whether Camille’s planning on popping in tonight or if he’s going to have to go through his Grindr’s to see who’s available, but then Nick tugs on his wrist.

“Yeah?” he asks, turning back to him as he stands there, downtroddenand red-eyed, in his bedroom-door. “All right?”

Nick bites his lip.

“What?”

“Can we,” he drops his head, steps a little closer, and Harry’s gut starts to tighten, “I hate sleeping alone.”

Fuck. “Nick, I’m—”

“Please,” Nick’s head lifts, eyes wide and pleading, “please, it won’t mean anything, you know it doesn’t mean anything, it wouldn’t— it wouldn’t be the first time.”

No. If they didn’t do this, it’d be the first time they _hadn’t_. Harry always functions as post-Dan comfort and Nick always functions as— well, what anybody functions as when they start offering up things Harry can’t resist.

Nick’s nuzzling in at his collarbone now, hands wandering downwards. This would be the moment; this would be the moment Harry pushed him off. Now. While he still has the chance.

“Please,” Nick whispers then, cupping him through his jeans and rubbing circles, “I’ll let you do anything.”

He squeezes a little harder and Harry’s stomach clenches up, blood rushing downstairs, heat firing up his spine, his neck, over his head, he’s drowning in it, consumed, he can’t— he’s growling, shoving Nick backwards into the backroom, hardly managing to kick back at the door to slam it closed. He’s telling Nick get on the bed, ripping his own belt off, jeans down, yanking at his cock, hard and dry, it hurts and he doesn’t care, he growls when Nick rolls onto his stomach and then he mounts him, gets him just slick enough before he starts, growling, biting, losing track of himself. Burning up inside as he thrusts, shoves, yanks and spanks. Burning up until he’s on the verge, finally, and he flips Nick over, jerks himself tight and fast, tells him to say things, all the things he needs to hear, all the things he’ll hate himself for later, and then comes all over Nick’s face.

Burning up until he can think again. Breathe.

 

*

 

The next night, Nick asks him again, with his hands and the smell of his slick, to fuck and sleep together. The one after that, he does the same, and the one after that he doesn’t need to, just expects, just like Harry does. It’s mostly about the after-part for Nick; being held, being petted and comforted when he wakes up crying, missing and, or, hating Dan. It may be a bit about the before, too; about feeling wanted again, feeling attractive again after being treated like something to come home to when all the better options have fallen through.

To Harry, it’s about what it always is. He doesn’t mind the after either, though, in fact he’s happy to be there. As well as helping Nick, it also makes him feel less filthy, less vapid and lonely than fucking Camille only to have her walk back in and sleep with Emmy or fucking some late-night text and ushering them out at four in the morning before anyone wakes and sees. Before Louis wakes and sees.

Still, he’s constantly worried that Louis suspects something. That Louis hears them through the wall.

“I’m worried about Louis,” Camille says, one evening after dinner, when Louis and Emmy and Nick, who’re all on the same dishwashing-team, are busy in the kitchen.

They’ve just snuck up into Harry’s room and had a quick round. She got angry with him toward the end and he got angry with himself, too, because he couldn’t help it. He knows she doesn’t like it up the arse very much and yet he always asks, nags, begs, because he can’t stop himself, because he can’t fucking _come_ without it; the filthy talk, the filthy acts, the filthy hole, he needs it to be worse for it to be better, he needs it more extreme the more he gets it. With Nick, it’s a little easier because he’s used to getting used, he lets Harry do the nastiest things, but in the end it’s not very easy at all because Harry feels like shit afterwards. He should really just stick to fucking people he doesn’t know outside of sex, but when they come up to him, when they touch and they offer and they’re two doors away, it’s virtually impossible not to go there.

“Why?” Harry asks, pulling his greasy hair back up in a bun, “did he say something?”

“No,” Camille mutters, lying back on the mattress to lift her pelvis and pull her knickers back up, “that’s exactly the thing. He doesn’t say anything at all to me anymore. Not unless I speak to him first and then it’s still, like— one syllable shit.”

Harry takes a break from buckling his belt when she stills with an exasperated sigh. “Does he— do you think he’s seen us?”

“Yeah,” she snort-laughs, “didn’t I tell you?” she grins at Harry until she realises Harry isn’t going to grin back at her, then snort-laughs again and says; “Harry, he saw us fuck the first time we did it. He walked in by accident.”

Harry’s stomach drops. “What?”

“Well, yeah, I— I thought I’d told you. What the fuck, then it must’ve been… no, that’s right, it was Vince I told.”

“Who the fuck is Vince?”

“The guy I fuck on Thursdays. The Scottish guy. The guy who sneezes when he co—”

“Why the fuck didn’t you tell me Louis walked in on us?”

“I _just_ did.”

Harry stares at her for a moment, incredulous. Then he remembers that he doesn’t actually have the right to be angry with her and internalizes the feeling instead. He should’ve been more careful. He should’ve had more willpower, he thinks, even though he knows full well that willpower’s never been part of his sexual vocabulary.

“Do you think he’s sad?” Camille asks.

Harry looks back at her, heart pounding. He never ever wants Louis to be sad. “What do you mean?”

“Do you think he’s— I mean, I couldn’t really read his expression. You’ve always been better at that than me. I figured he might’ve been down about the shit that happened with Dan, but— maybe it’s not about that. Maybe Emmy’s right.”

“About what?” Harry asks, staring into her eyes murderously hard because if he doesn’t, his gaze will drop to her tits at lightning speed. “Can’t you cover, uhm—”  

“About thinking Louis’ in love with you,” Camille says, and then she glances down herself and Harry does too, because he’s weak, and she looks up and grins a little, “mate, you _just_ came.”

Harry rips his eyes off the tits he just came on. He throws her t-shirt over her. “Just cover, all right, I can’t concentrate. What were you saying? Louis.”

“You’re fucking insatiable, Hazzer,” she laughs, pushing the shirt away just to be a tease. She thinks it’s funny, she thinks it’s playful, just a joke, but it isn’t. It’s making it fucking _impossible_ for Harry to think about what he wants to think about. “I was saying that Louis—”

“Can I suck on them?”

She stutters out a laugh. “What?”

He’s starting to sweat. “I wanna suck on them, can I—”   

“No, what? Harry, I’ve just spent twenty minutes waiting for you to finish, my arse hurts like hell, you must be fucked if you think I wanna go again,” she snorts, sitting up and finally pulling the shirt over her head so he can breathe again, “no, what I was saying was, essentially, that you may want to take Louis’ feelings into account. I know you two’ve always just been friends and that’s what it’s looked like to me to, but Emmy might be onto something. Maybe he’s down about you and I fucking.”

“Yeah,” Harry breathes out, closing his eyes and waiting for his half-chub to go down so he can think again, “yeah. Yeah, Louis. Yeah.”

 

*

 

A few disgusting porn-clips and a wank later, Harry comes to. Comes to feel like shit.

He always had a nagging suspicion that Louis wanted more than what Harry’s friendship offered. It’s always been hard not to give in, to remind himself that he’s better than that, that _Louis_ ’ better than that, it’s often been something near impossible. He still resents himself for rubbing off on Louis that one time they shared a bed on vacation and he’d had a bit too much to drink and bit too little pussy and he’d thought, stupidly, that he could have Louis, just a little bit of Louis, just once. When he then, of course, woke Louis by his utter lack of self-control, he blamed it on sleep and Louis believed him. When Louis offered him sex the morning after, Harry first had his suspicions confirmed. And he wanted more than anything in the entire world to be able to just be happy and fuck Louis into the mattress for it. He always wants to fuck Louis into the mattress.

But he couldn’t. He couldn’t do that to Louis.

After he shoved his cock down Louis’ throat and made him gag and cry in the playroom, he promised himself never to come near Louis like that again. He never wants anyone to do something like that to Louis, not if he can help it, and he can, he thinks he can.

But if Louis hurts just a fraction of what Harry does seeing Louis with other people, then Harry doesn’t know how he’s even still here. Then Harry doesn’t know what to do to make it better without accidentally making it worse.

“Do you think people hear us through the walls?” Harry asks that evening, when he’s just blown his load up Nick’s back after pretending not to hear him ask for his knot. He can’t do that. Nick doesn’t really want it and Harry _really_ doesn’t want what comes with it. “Like, from the next room.”

“Who, Camille and Emmy?” Nick asks, snuggling up to his side.

“Yeah,” he breathes, “or, like, Louis.”

“Why? D’you not want him to hear?”

Harry glances down at him. He doesn’t seem to be digging for assurance, but rather just asking because he’s been wondering. Which makes Harry feel even more unsettled than if it’d just been the first option. “No,” he says, much belatedly, “just don’t want to wake people.”

“What, cause you make me moan so loud?”

Harry gives him a light slap on the cheek. “Whine.”

“Groan.”

“Whimper.”

“Oh, please, you’re a _child_.”

“Right, I forget you were thir—”

“Shut up. Shut _up_. We do not speak of my age.”   

Harry laughs and Nick turns over and, instead of going to spoon like Nick expects, Harry sits up and gets out of bed. “Gotta piss.”

“Come back after.”

“Hm.”

He pads out of the room, back aching from how long it took him to come this time. He’s surprised Nick didn’t call it quits despite wincing into the pillow for a good part of the last half hour, and feels bad too, because he didn’t call it quits himself. Nick has work tomorrow, because he works at an evil corporation which sometimes makes their employees come in on Saturdays. Nick is going to work tomorrow, on a Saturday, with a limp.

Just as he’s writing himself a mental note to give the worst of it to someone off Grindr tomorrow, he notices something. A door ajar. Louis’ door ajar.

It’s about two am and there’s light on in Louis’ room and his door is ajar. Louis’ door is never ajar; he has an aversion to semi-closed doors; he’s an either or kind of guy when it comes to doors. Besides, if he’s up at two am, he’s watching Netflix on his iPad with the main lights off, a childhood-habit he never shook.

Harry walks up to the door and peeks in. And— what the fuck.

On the floor before his dresser, back facing Harry, crouched over an open suitcase, sits Louis. He’s got his head bowed, snuggly soft-grey sweatshirt and little blue boxers on, hair all rumpled. His movements are fast, aggressive almost, as he smell-tests clothes and throws it around, either into the suitcase or randomly across the room.

“Louis?” Harry half-whispers, and Louis’ entire body stills.

A pair of briefs slip out of his hands. “Go away,” he says, after a beat. Harry doesn’t move, doesn’t speak either, doesn’t find the right words to ask what’s going on before Louis’ hissing; “I said, fuck off!”

“What’s—”

Louis’ head snaps up, but he doesn’t turn around. “Fuck. Off.”

And something in his voice, too shrill, too sharp and weak at the same time, it makes Harry’s stomach twist. He steps into the room and closes the door behind himself. “Louis—”

“No,” Louis shouts, and turns, finally. But, oh, Harry almost wishes he hadn’t. His eyes are puffy, red, his little nose too and his mouth is trembling at the corners, “fuck off, Harry, fuck the _fuck_ off.”

Harry walks closer, can’t help it, his chest tightening, and Louis presses his lips together tightly, shoves his jaw out and hardens his gaze, but his mouth won’t stop trembling. “Why are you packing?”

“I’m going home for a bit.”

“It’s two am.”

“So?”

“So,” Harry stops a few feet in front of Louis, even though everything in his body screams _closer, closer, closer_. “So, you’re not going home at two am in the night.”

“I’ll do what I want, I’m a grown man.”

“Why are you going? Why now? Did something happen to someone or—”

Louis shakes his head and then keeps it down, gaze pinned to his half-packed suitcase. “No,” he says, “I just want to go home.”

“This is your home.”

“I just wanted to get _away_ from home, then.”

“What’s happening, Lou?” Harry drops down into a crouch to level with him, “talk to me. What’s going on? Something must’ve happened to make you pack up all of a sudden and—”

“Why are you even in here?” Louis looks up, eyes burning, watering, “that was quick your knot went down.”

Harry blinks. “What?”

“I can fucking _hear_ you,” Louis says, slowly, and he smiles, bitter and horrible as his eyes squint up, dangerously close to brimming over, “I can hear you through the fucking wall,” he grits through his teeth, like he’s revolted, like he’s fighting not to puke, “fucking him. Saying all your— all your _nasty_ things, you’re so— you’re so _fucking_ disgusting, I don’t know why I— and didn’t you knot him? Aren’t you supposed to be tied now, then, you and him?”

Harry sucks in a shaky breath, but hardly feels like he gets any air down through his closed-up throat. “He asked me to,” he gets out, “I didn’t do it.”

For a second, Louis just looks at him, round-eyed, relieved. Then he drops his head again and starts to grab at clothes on the floor, toss them into the suitcase. “I don’t care,” he says, “I don’t even have the bloody right to care and— and—”

“Why are you crying?” Harry cuts through, voice hoarse, hardly there. It’s all he can do not to yank Louis across the suitcase and into his lap, hold him and lick all those tears off his beautiful face. “Please, I hate to see you cry.”

Louis gives a scoff of a laugh and wipes angrily at the tears with the sleeve of his sweatshirt. “S’funny, you know what I hate?” he rasps, “I hate hearing you fuck someone else up against me bedroom wall every night. It’s pretty—” he swallows hard, “it’s pretty hard, actually. To fall asleep. To the sound of,” he looks up, knocks his fist into his open palm methodically to demonstrate and Harry wants to puke, “you know? Not exactly a lullaby, is it? And the shit you spew during, _fuckin_ ’ hell, I don’t know what kind of _sick_ porn you’ve been watching, but—”  

“Lou,” Harry croaks out, eyes warm, throat tight. “I’m not—”

“But it’s not your fault because I have no right to be angry with you, you haven’t— it’s just me. Stupid little me. Thinking… things that I shouldn’t be. Hoping stupid shit and— but it’s just me. It’s only me, alone in it, I get that. It just hurts a little bit. You know, to watch you want literally _everybody_ else. _Everybody_ in the _entire_ universe but—”    

Harry sucks in a sobbing breath. “Lou, I’m sorry, I—”  

“Don’t apologise,” Louis’ head snaps up, “don’t apologise, babe, it’s not your fault,” he says, much too fast, “it’s not your fault I can’t take no for an answer. It must be fucking annoying for you, having me force myself on you, I—”

“I don’t want to ruin our friendship,” Harry cuts through, “you’re the only person— you’re the best person. I love you. I love you differently than everybody else.”

Louis licks over his teeth, eyes glassy. “Yeah, and I love you differently than you love me, so. I can’t stand it, Harry. I can’t. It’s not your fault, it’s, eh— it’s just unfortunate, really. That’s all it is. I’m in love with you and that’s just— that just is what it is.”

Harry swallows hard. “You’re in love with me?”

“Yeah, course I am,” Louis huffs, “and it’s not your fault and you don’t have to say anything, I— I really don’t need you to say anything, I just need you to let me leave because I hadn’t expected this, but, uhm…” his hands shake around a pair of trousers he’s trying to fold and he stops moving altogether, and then his shoulders shake too and he lets out a sob.

It’s small and quiet and just enough to rip through Harry’s entire chest.

He shoves the suitcase aside.

“Harry—”

He jumps across, takes Louis by his face and kisses him. Louis slaps at his chest and Harry pulls back, but continues around his face, presses smacking kisses all over his soft, tear-stained cheeks and licks the frail skin under his eyes, the little crinkles beside them, his sniffly nose, his neck, fuck, his _neck_. By the time he makes it back up to look at Louis properly, Louis is shaking, panting, still crying. Crying harder.

“S’it okay?” Harry dips down and licks at his tears, but they keep coming, “Lou, sweet, please, is—”

“Don’t do this,” Louis sobs out, eyes screwing shut, “please, I don’t want your pityfuck and—”

“It’s not pity,” Harry growls, dipping down and kisses his eyelids, “it’s not pity, it’s not, it’s not, I want you.”

Louis turns his head and sobs again and Harry doesn’t know what to do so he just presses his nose into his cheek and stays there. “You don’t,” Louis hiccups, “you don’t, you just don’t want me to leave, but you don’t want me like that, I know you don’t.”

Harry stays stiff for a moment, at a loss for words, and right now all he wants to do is hold Louis till he stops crying. But then Louis takes advantage of his relaxed position and shoves him off. He topples onto his back and Louis rolls away from him, sniffling still, hissing under his breath about how much he hates that Harry tried to pityfuck him, as if Harry hasn’t wanted to lust-fuck the shit out of him every day of his life since he was fifteen years old.

Harry turns over and looks at him. He’s on all fours now, crawling toward his suitcase.

And— Harry was about to say something, something useless, but he loses his words and gets stuck on what he sees. Takes in the look of Louis’ thick tan thighs, his knees as they bend on the floor like they’re supposed to, his arse, his fat, round arse that Harry never lets himself look at, ever, because—

“Okay,” he growls, jumping up on all fours and crawling after, “okay, fuck—” he’s framing Louis’ body in seconds, grinding into him and Louis is stiffening, then trying to shrug him off, then stiffening again when Harry presses his growing bulge up against him harder, “I want you. I want you like that. Like this,” he grunts, “Louis, I do. I just don’t want to scare you.”

Louis huffs, shaky. “Scare me?”

“You—” Louis starts to smell right then, much worse, better, and Harry’s cock twitches into the soaked fabric of his boxers, “you’re wet.”

“Nice observation,” Louis rasps out, and Harry bites down on the back of his shoulder, “you don’t—”

Harry yanks his boxers down and presses up against him, rides up between his plump arsecheeks, and Louis shudders, all down his spine. “Baby,” Harry growls.

“Fuck me,” Louis whispers.

“What?”

Louis stills and Harry uses every ounce of self-restraint in himself to do the same. Then Louis lifts his head again, hair brushing Harry’s nose, and says, firmer; “fuck me.”

“Yeah,” Harry half-gasps, and then begins to dick in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know i've said time and time again i wouldn't do this but... i did it. so. i hope you liked seeing some of harry's thoughts too and it didn't ruin anything for you :)


	6. Chapter 6

Harry’s only halfway in when it starts to sting. It’s been ages since Louis’ last had so much as a finger in him and he didn’t have long enough to get properly wet, they didn’t even kiss before Harry yanked his pants down to his thighs. Less than a minute ago, Louis was on his way to pack that stupid suitcase he’s staring at now, as he grits his teeth and tries to open up.

Harry humps in further, maybe all the way, Louis isn’t sure, but it burns so bad that he drops his hips to the floor and, when Harry tries to follow, shoves a hand back and tells him, “stop, fuck, pull it out.”

Harry does, and Louis flattens out on his stomach, clutching his hole, panting.

“Shit,” Harry hisses from behind him, voice shot.

Louis whimpers into the carpet his face is lying sideways in, and then Harry takes his hand off his own hole and blankets him with all of his weight. His cock is still hard, twitching and pulsing as it nestles between Louis’ arse cheeks, but he doesn’t try and put it in again. He slips a hand up under Louis’ sweatshirt, holds him at the ribs and teethes at the back of his hair.

“We don’t have to do this,” Louis pants out, not because he isn’t still throbbing hard, not because he isn’t getting slicker every second Harry and his scent, his fat cock and his big warm hands, are on him like this, not because he doesn’t want this exactly as much as he always has; but because he doesn’t want it from someone who doesn’t really want it back. Especially not when that someone is Harry. “It’d hurt a million times more if we did fuck and you didn’t really want me.”

“I want you,” Harry says, voice so deep it tugs at Louis’ lower gut, “but you’re really fucking tight.”

“I haven’t been fucked in a while,” Louis says, and Harry’s fingers twitch where they’ve settled around his ribs. “And, Harry, I don’t want you to fuck me if you don’t really want to fuck me. I know you’re hard, I know you’re— but I don’t want it to be like, where you’re imagining someone else or you’re just closing your eyes and going by the scent, I’d feel disgusting if you weren’t actually into me, if you’re forcing yourself to—”

“Can I try again?” Harry cuts through on a rasp, like he’s hardly even heard a word Louis’ said, “please. I’ll be— I’ll try and be really gentle.”

Louis clenches his arsemuscles around him, and Harry whines into his shoulder, humping down hard, “fuck, you want it that bad?” Louis breathes, awed almost, because he’s never had Harry like this, he never thought he was someone who could, “you—”

“I’ll be— tell me if it’s too much, just tell me cause, uhm,” he inches back, lining his slick-sticky cock up again and, just as he starts to push in, Louis shoves back at him.

“No, wait,” he says,  rolling onto his back.

“What?” Harry whines from where he’s been cast off on his side.

Louis takes him by his face, draws him close again. “Wanna look at you,” he mutters into Harry’s soft, wet mouth and Harry growls again, kisses him sloppily while his big frantic hands yank at Louis’ boxers. Soon as he can, he gets between Louis’ thighs, slips those hands up under his hoodie and under his back, hooks them round his shoulders.

“Haz,” Louis breathes, tilting out of the kiss, and Harry continues down the side of his face, sucking little smacks that have Louis panting, shaking, heart racing when they reach his throat. He’s never had Harry like this before. He wants more, more, more, but it’s so overwhelming that he wants it slow as well, wants to savour every bit of it, wants to make sure his chest doesn’t explode before it’s over, “Haz— _ah_.”

Harry pushes into him again then, face in his neck, teeth around his collarbone, and Louis’ hands curl up tight around his shoulderblades. He’s wet enough that Harry has a smooth slide in until he’s balls deep, hard enough that it feels good when he does, but then Harry pulls halfway out and snaps in again almost immediately, fast, and again, and again, and Louis digs his nails in, bites into his own lip, tries to take it, but—

“ _Fuck_ , not so hard,” he lets out, after less than five seconds, “fuck, fuck, it’s too fast, gimme a sec, I need a sec, I—”

Harry stops moving like a car that’s just had a deer jump right in front, pulling the brakes so hard he’s whining, hips jumping several seconds after, biceps tense and trembling around Louis’ head. He makes an exasperated noise, then lifts his head out of the crook of Louis’ neck and looks at him. His hair hangs down around Louis’ face like curtains, his lips pressed into a thin line, nostrils vibrating.  

“I’m so sorry,” he breathes out raggedly, “I’m so sorry, fuck, I thought you, uhm— I, sorry, I—”    

Louis smooths his sweaty hair back from his face. There’s a vein, twitching in his forehead. “Do you really want me or is this just—”

“I _really_ want you,” Harry gasps.

“Okay,” Louis breathes, “lets get in bed, then. And— I want you to finger me first and I want to suck you off for a bit, I don’t want— I want to take it a bit slower. This is really overwhelming for me,” he says, and Harry nods, fast and manic, like _yeah, me too_ , “and, ehm— and I want you to wear a condom. I think that’s best. Okay?”

Harry swallows, adam’s apple bopping hard, and he nods. He pulls out slowly, whining low in his throat like his entire body’s objecting to it, like the act of pulling out instead of pushing in goes against every fiber of his being, and Louis watches him as he gets up, big cock bopping out proudly, abs tense, jerking.

Louis crawls into bed and pulls out his nightstand drawer while Harry waits by the side of it, stroking himself.

“Shit,” Louis mutters, when his go-to pack of condoms turns out to be empty. It’s been so long. He rummages around, but doesn’t find anything else, then goes to the drawer underneath and the one under that and— “fuck.”

“What?” Harry says, voice raspy and dazed like he hasn’t been watching at all.

Louis glances back at him and he _has_ been watching - Louis’ arse. He’s just ogling shamelessly, twisting his hand over the head of his cock, cupping his own balls, licking his lips like he’s starving for it.

It almost hurts to tell him, “Haz, I’m out of condoms.”

“What?” Harry looks like the kid who’s just been told Santa isn’t real, “no. No.”

“Yes.”

“Do— uhm, I don’t think I have—”

Louis tilts his head. A few minutes ago he was so caught up in the moment, vulnerable and horny and hurt, that he thinks he would’ve let Harry knot him if it’d come to that, but the sting of the stretch woke him up a bit, jolted some sense into him. There’s a Nick in the next room, there’s a Camille a little further down, there are so, so many random men and women sneaking in and sneaking out that Louis can’t account for - that _Harry_ probably can’t even account for.

“I know I’m clean,” he says, “can you tell me honestly that you always use them? With everyone?”

Harry bites his lip. Right.

“But, come here,” Louis sighs, turning onto his back and reaching his fingers out for him, “we can just do other stuff. I just wanna kiss.”  

Harry moves a little closer, lets Louis thread their fingers together, but when Louis starts to pull him down and his cock touches skin, he backs up. He stumbles backwards. “No,” he says, “no, I can’t, uhm— I don’t think I’ll be able to.”

Louis’ jerks up on his elbows. “No, don’t do this to me. Please don’t do this to me, you _just_ said—”

“No, not like—” Harry’s gaze glides down him, and then he cuts it back up, covers his own mouth and pinches his nose while he’s there. He closes his eyes, swallowing hard, then lowers his hand and says, eyes on the wall behind Louis, “not like, that I won’t be able to, with _you_. That’s just fucking ridiculous, look at you, Lou,” Louis scoffs just as his face heats up, and Harry makes an exasperated noise. “I don’t think I’ll be able to get in bed with you right now without, uhm— cause your slick and your— I don’t really trust myself. Right now.”

Louis chuckles, a little. “I can wipe off and we can put some jammies on and enforce a strict hands-above-the-waist policy if that helps,” he says, half-joking. He wouldn’t mind getting off right now, but it’s not the be all and end all; he just wants Harry close again. “Please, are you all right?”

Harry buries into his hands then, groaning. He stands for a moment like that, naked and painfully hard, face in his hands and hair wild around them.

Then he lifts his head, eyes shooting straight back up to the wall behind Louis. “Okay,” he says, “if I promise you I’ll be back in here in fifteen minutes, tops, will you promise me to wipe off and use some descentifying cologne or something and then put your pants back on and lie right there?”

Louis stares at him incredulously, but he won’t take his stupid eyes off the fucking wall. “Are you serious?” he hisses, “I don’t mind not getting off, but you’re not coming in here to sleep if you’re looking to cuddle and act like you weren’t just up my fucking arse—”

“ _Fuck_ ,” Harry hisses, hand flying down to squeeze at the base of his cock.

“Well, it’s true,” Louis says, “and what are you going off for anyway?”

Harry lifts his hands off his cock and digs his fingers into the inner corners of his eyes. “I’m just, I’m just,” he half-growls, “I’m, fuck, I— I’m really, really wanting to fuck you bare right now and if I get in this bed now I’m going to end up begging for it until you let me and I don’t want that to happen, so— please, will you do what I said and then I’ll be back in fifteen?”

He looks Louis in the eye, finally, expression so strained it looks painful, and Louis rides out a shudder - _he_ made Harry like that - and says; “okay, then. But if you’re not back in fifteen, I’m locking the door.”

When Harry’s closed the door behind him, Louis gets out of bed. He’s not really hard anymore and if he tries jerking off just to take the edge off of everything, he’ll only get wetter and worse on Harry. He leaves his cock be, instead finding his slick-wipes in the drawer and cleaning himself. He throws them in the bin, then takes the descentifying spray-deo Niall gave him last Christmas out of it’s packaging, and sprays the bin, as well as himself. He strips the sheets, too, because he’s been slicking them up and if he isn’t getting fucked it really isn’t worth sliding around in his own fluids all night.

He’s just pulling on a fresh t-shirt and pants when he hears Harry’s footsteps coming back down the hall. He’d gone to the loo, presumably, to pull himself off, presumably, and now he’s coming back, presumably.

Except Louis presumed wrong and Harry doesn’t stop at his door. He stops at the next one. Nick’s one.

Louis sits down on his bed as quietly as possible, curling a hand up in the cool blue sheets he’s just put on. All week, he’s hated the fact that this wall is so thin, that he can make out every moan, every word, every groan, without hardly having to try. He’s been writhing around in bed, caught between wanting to listen, touching himself while he did, masochistic and fucking addicted to the sound of Harry’s voice, and wanting to rip his own chest out, rupture his own eardrums.

Now he’s anxious as hell, still, but not one bit uncertain as to whether he wants to hear this or not; if Harry so much as touches Nick, he’s not getting let in here tonight. He’s not getting let in, ever again.

“Come, hm, hm,” he hears through the wall, muttered like Nick’s been asleep, which is good, Louis supposes, although a sadistic, bitter part of him kind of wishes Nick heard them fucking before, just to know what it feels like. Not that it’d be the same; Nick is stuck in the terrible position where his heart, for whatever reason Louis won’t ever try to fathom, belongs to Dan. Which is why Louis got so scared when he heard Nick ask for Harry’s knot earlier; if first Harry knotted him, feelings might change. Attachments might grow. And one thing is hearing Harry fuck someone through the wall; that’s terrible, that’s fucking gut-wrenching. A whole other would be hearing him make _love_ to someone else; that’s just not survivable.

“I’m going to, hm, hm, Louis,” Louis hears Harry say.

Then the feathers of the bed creak, like someone’s either sat down or jerked up to sit. He hopes it’s the latter. “Why? Is he all right?” Nick’s asking.

“Yeah, but he needs a cuddle,” Harry replies, and, well— it isn’t untrue, “I’ve got to—”

“Yeah, it’s all right,” Nick cuts off, “go be with him.”

Harry asks twice more whether Nick’s going to be okay sleeping alone and Nick says something along the lines of _I’m going to have to get used to it sooner or later, aren’t I?_ , and then Harry finally leaves the room. He goes into his own room after that, stays gone for a minute or two, then comes out again.

And then he finally comes back in to Louis.  

“Hey,” he says softly, careful as he closes the door behind him. He’s put on grey trackies and a soft cream-Henley, all four buttons of it open, fabric thin enough that his tattoos show through, “can I come in?”

He’s moving closer already, but Louis still tells him, just for good measure, “yeah, get in, then.”

“Thank you.”

It feels odd when Louis scoots closer to the wall and Harry slides in beside him, both of them semi-dressed, both of them semi-sane after having come down off their emotional roller-coasters. Harry’s hair is up in a bun, but it looks wet still, and Louis itches to pull it out, doesn’t care if he soaks the pillow, just wants it free, drying wild and soft and curly.

Instead of reaching across and doing it without asking for permission like he normally would, Louis says; “not good to put your hair up when it’s wet.”

“Hm,” Harry grunts, lying down on his side like Louis, eyes constantly switching between overly intense and bashfully downturned, “but you’ve just changed the sheets, I’ll get the pillow all wet.”

“You will anyway,” Louis pushes a lock out of his eyes for him, “just let it out.”

“Wet hair, don’t care.”

“Let loose, woman.”

The crook of Harry’s mouth quirks up and Louis shifts a little closer while he frees his damp locks. His baby-hairs have already started to curl, sweet around his face, and Louis wants to kiss his soft pink mouth something so terribly.

“Lou,” Harry says, his knuckles touching to Louis’ tummy under the duvet, “I miss you. I’ve— I miss you every day we don’t talk.”

“Yeah,” Louis says, because it’s been something near impossible keeping the distance. It’s been vital to his self-esteem, though. Harry inches even closer, the tip of his nose just touching Louis’. “Yeah,” Louis whispers, eyes fluttering closed just to cope, stomach clenching up with anticipation.

Everything’s quiet. Everything’s quiet, save for their breathing, ragged against each other’s mouths.

Then Harry kisses him.

It’s slow, soft, and when Harry pulls back, he just smiles, lips a little twitchy. Louis dips in again and kisses him back, darts his tongue in to find Harry’s and slides a hand up to cup the side of his face. Something about it reminds Louis of that first time in the playroom, Harry letting his mouth get used, letting Louis steer the pace of things like he’s pliant, like he’s lazy, soft in it. But his fingers are digging into the juncture of Louis’ jaw.

Louis moves closer and, when Harry doesn’t tip onto his back, he nudges his knee between Harry’s instead. Harry’s mouth makes a soft popping noise when he pulls back for a second, but Louis chases it again, kisses him before he says anything and slides his thigh in-between both of Harry’s, pets a hand up and down his side.

He shifts closer again and Harry makes a broken-off sound against his mouth and Louis’ hand slips down to brush over his bum and then he breaks away from the kiss.

“You okay?” Louis asks, anxiety shooting through his blood again. He knew. He knew it couldn’t be this easy. 

Harry studies his face, then clears his throat and rasps, “yeah,” even though his brows are still furrowed. He takes Louis’ wrist, moves his hand off of himself and pushes forward until Louis tips onto his back, then takes his other wrist too, presses them both into the mattress and leans down and connects their mouths again.

“Can I not touch you?” Louis asks between long, sweet kisses, grinning into it as he wriggles his wrists around a little.

“No,” Harry says, pulling back to give him a firm look, “unless I know you’ll keep it above the waist.”

Louis snorts-laughs. “All right, daddy.”

Harry closes his eyes, a sharp exhale through his nostrils puffing Louis’ face. “Please.”

“Steady,” Louis chuckles, cupping Harry’s face and drawing him down for another quick peck, “Haz, relax. Haz.”

Harry blinks his eyes open again, pupils dilated. “Lou.”

“Yeah. It’s me. Lou. Relax,” Louis smiles, kissing his sweet, slack mouth again, “relax, it’s just me.”

“Mhm,” Harry whines, nosing into his skin, “I know, I just—”

“Let’s just go to sleep now,” Louis says, because he thinks this might be in the running for the most exhausting night of his entire life and it’s starting to become light outside his window, “I’m too tired to think straight.”

“Mhm,” Harry nods into his face and Louis chuckles, even as he’s still shaking a little.

He turns over on his side and Harry fits around him from behind, nosing into the nape of his neck and pressing a last kiss to the top bone of his spine, sending shivers right down it. It’s all he can do not to slick up in his pants then, and instead just thread their fingers together and give Harry’s hand a squeeze. He writes a mental note to stock up on box-loads of condoms.


	7. Chapter 7

When he wakes, he’s alone. There’s noise all around the house, there’s light streaming in through his window and there’s no sign Harry was even here last night, save for the sheets that smell like him. Across the room, the suitcase still lies, gutted open and half-empty. Louis cringes a bit at the sight of it, at the reminder of the state of himself last night. He’d been exhausted. Emotionally, for the most part. Every person has a breaking point and hearing Nick ask the man that he’s loved for too long to admit for a knot was it for Louis.

Now he’s here, alone in a bed that’s still marked by Harry, crinkled where he laid, and his arse is kind of sore. He’d let Harry have him if he came in and asked right now, anyway. Without the condom even, because he’s slept-out and giddy and he can still feel Harry’s sweet soft mouth on his own.

The door opens, right then. It isn’t Harry.

It’s nothing, at first, until Louis sits up and looks further down and finds two small blonde women running toward him.

“Toppo!”

“Oh, hi, guys,” Louis throws a hand through his hair and straightens up, “what’s up?”

“You slee late!” Erin says, grunting and redfaced as she attempts to mount the bed. Louis reaches down and pulls her up, then Eve too, before she starts whimpering at the utter unfairness of life. “Daddy say you wash Nettix aaaaaaall night.”

“Yeah,” Louis chuckles, “that’s about right.”

“We no,” Eve pouts, “daddy is no tellyvision after bed.”

“Yeah, well, your daddy’s a very smart man,” Louis says, and regrets it when he realises Niall’s just stepped into the doorway and heard him. He’s not going to hear the end of that one.

“What’s that, Tommo?”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Sod off.”

“No, really, my hearing isn’t what it used to be, could you just repeat that for me, you—”

“He say daddy’s very small man!” Eve yells, helpful as she is.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Louis grins. “Anyway, why are you two all dressed?”

“Kate’s managed to get this Monday and Tuesday off too so we’re going to D-I-S-N-E-Y L-A-N-D, but it’s a surprise,” Niall says.

The girls look back at him, then at Louis again, eyes wide with excitement. “Issa supice,” Eve says, clapping her little hands, “we gotta go!”

“We say bye to evywone.”

“Jeez, what’s the time, Niall?”

“Half past two,” Niall says, “you’ve slept till half past two, yes, and everyone else have been up for hours, yes.”

Briefly, Louis considers asking whether Harry’s been up for hours, too, whether he’s been lounging around downstairs, fucking housemates and wondering which new bed to hop to tonight and how best to act as though he didn’t spend all night in Louis’, kissing his face and licking on his neck.

He comes off it, though, because Niall looks like he’s running late and, well— Louis wouldn’t have asked anyway. He does have legs on him, after all.

He follows Niall and the little ladies downstairs, gives them and Kate hugs and kisses and then Niall a slap-on-the-back half-hug and then a proper one when Niall tells him off for being a cunt, and then he sees them off, waving at the twins in the window until their car is out of sight.

And then he goes looking for Harry.

In the common-room, Camille and Emmy lie cuddling and, through the window, Louis sees Ziam playing footie with the boys, but Harry, he finds on his own. He’s just scraping scrambled eggs off a pan and onto perfectly toasted bread-slices when Louis walks into the kitchen.

“Oh,” he puts the pan down with a clonk, “I was gonna— nevermind. The bacon’s done in a sec.”

“What were you gonna do?” Louis asks, sliding backwards up onto the counter by the plate of egg on toast.

Harry’s in the same Henley and trackies as last night, hair now back up in a loose bun as he pokes at sizzling bacon with a spatula, little chocolate curls popping out all around his porcelain face. His lips look like they’ve been kissed on all night. Like they want to get kissed on some more.

“Bring you breakie in bed,” Harry murmurs, and Louis reaches over and tugs at his bun. It gives easy, turns into a thick wavy ponytail that Louis drags his fingers through. “Or, well, I guess it’s more, like, lunch at this point. Late lunch, actually.”

“What?”

Harry pushes bacon onto the plate, then smiles up at Louis. “There you go.”

“That’s for me?”

“Weren’t you listening to a word I just said?”

Louis picks a bacon up and pops it in his mouth, crispy and greasy and orgasmic as it crumbles on his tongue. He shakes his head and pulls a foot up on the counter, rests his plate on the top of his knee and holds it in place with one hand. “Thank you,” he says, and then again when Harry gives him a fork after he’s just shoveled a load of egg up into his mouth by hand-force, “you didn’t have to do this. Aren’t you having any yourself?”

“I’ve eaten,” Harry murmurs, pulling himself up on the kitchen island across from Louis. He stretches his long legs out, feet settling against the edge of the counter on either side of Louis.

“What?”

“Oatmeal and a green smoothie and—”

“Stop, please, you’re ruining my appetite.”

Harry chuckles softly and Louis turns to his plate, focusing his energy on attempting to arrange the perfect egg on toast on bacon forkful without dropping it halfway to his mouth. He manages to do so, and then chew and swallow and lick his lips off and Harry still hasn’t broken the silence.

He looks up. “Hey,” he says.

“Hey,” Harry says back, already looking at him, smile soft, small. “You look cute. Your eyes are all puffy.”

“Oh, I—” Louis rubs at his under-eyes, “overslept.”

“You were up late.”

Louis sighs. “Yeah. Quite the night last night, huh?”

“Huh,” Harry agrees, nudging his big-toe at the side of Louis’ thigh, “you all right?”

“I’m all right.”

“And the suitcase?”

Louis draws a circle in a pool of bacon-grease with the pad of his finger, then nods, quietly. “Yeah,” he says, “she’s all right too. Staying put here, for now.”

“Good.”

Louis looks up again. “Is it?”

“Yeah,” Harry tilts his head, brows twitching a bit, “course it’s good. I don’t want you to leave us.”

Us.

Louis shoves the last of his toast in his gob and puts the plate aside, leg sliding down alongside his other one, head tilting back against the cabinets. He closes his eyes. “I don’t want to ask a thousandth time, but…” he begins, sick at the sound of his own voice already, “what’s going on? Do you regret last night? Is it going to become something we don’t talk about and just ignore now?” he opens his eyes and looks straight into Harry’s, firm even as he’s shaking inside, “just, I need a head’s up. Before I humiliate myself again.”

Harry nods, lip behind his teeth. His feet drop off the counter on either side of Louis and he gets off the island and comes toward Louis, but doesn’t touch him. Instead, he takes the plate beside him to the sink and rinses it off, then leaves it in the sink, head bowed, back tense.

Louis jumps off the counter. “It’s really not that difficult,” he says, thick lump in his throat objecting, “you either see us being more than friends or you don’t and we go back to just friends. But you don’t get to change your mind over and over. It’s either or. You don’t get to say no now and then yes tomorrow and—”

“No, I know,” Harry says hoarsely, hand finding Louis’ wrist just before he reaches the door, “fuck, I’m being a dick, I’m sorry, come here.”

He pulls on Louis’ wrist and Louis stumbles there until he’s close enough that Harry lets his wrist go in favour of gathering his face up in his hands and kissing him. His mouth is as soft and sweet as it was all night, gentle like his thumbs as they draw little circles over Louis’ jaw.

“Oh, wow—”

Harry pulls out of the kiss, hands still holding Louis’ face.

“Sorry, fuck,” Zayn coughs out, “I, eh— I was just getting some drinks for the boys.”

He nods toward the window behind Harry and Louis, the one Louis watched Harry and Camille fuck through that one terrible night, and they turn to meet the sight of Liam, Elliot and Micky all standing on the patio, watching them. Making obscene gestures.

“Shit,” Louis sighs, dropping his head, and Harry chuckles breathily, pressing a kiss to his forehead.

“Should I leave, do you— d’you want the kitchen to yourselves or—”

Louis rolls his eyes, stepping out of Harry’s arms. “Jesus, no, relax, s’your home too,” he rasps out, “we were just—”

“Louis had a hair on his tongue. You know when that happens, right? Right?” Harry says, “and, but, like— I told him I have a hypersensitive tongue, so I could, like, you know… dig in there and find it cause he couldn’t seem to—”

“Yeah, fuck off, you horny bastard,” Zayn says and slaps him over the arse and Harry breaks out in barky laughter and Louis is already on his way out of the room.

Harry catches him by the bottom of the stairs.

“Hey, wait, you—” he pulls Louis back by the arm, then steadies him back against the side of the stairs, “you hang on a minute.”

“Why?” Louis asks, and Harry kisses him mid-grin.

They stand there, like teenagers hiding, snogging, deep and tonguey, slow and soft, for a long while. Harry’s hands stay around Louis’ face, dug in tight, thumbs trembling, and Louis drags his up and down Harry’s back, just feeling him through the thin fabric of his Henley.

When his hands slip down a bit, feel at Harry’s hips and then his bum, Harry makes a stuttering little sound, but doesn’t stop it. When Louis starts to pull on him, tries to get his hips flush against his own, Harry stiffens up. He takes Louis’ wrists and lifts and presses them to the wall on either side of his head, then keeps kissing him.

“Kinky,” Louis grins into the kiss, and, when he receives no response but a tongue slotted deep into his mouth, tilts away and asks; “you popping down for condoms or shall I?”

Harry lets go of his wrists then, but only because he’s been startled, it seems, going by the look on his face when he pulls back a bit. “Not now,” he pants, “not today.”

“Why? You got a fifth-date rule or summat?” Louis cocks his head back and grins, “babe, I know you’re a slag, bit late to play hard to get now.”

“But you’re not,” Harry says, eyes round and worried, lips wet and parted as he’s still catching his breath, “you’re not, I don’t want—”

“I’m a normal amount of slag,” Louis argues.

“You’re Louis.”

“That too, yeah. One doesn’t cancel out the other, as it turns out, though.” Harry doesn’t even laugh. His eyes are so wide Louis has to get up on his toes and press another kiss to his mouth. “Steady, love, it’s just me.”

“Yeah,” Harry whines, “it’s _you_.”

“Me.”

“You.”

Louis laughs a little. “Me,” he says again, waggling his brows, “think we’ve settled that now.” He pokes a finger into Harry’s chest. “And you’re you.”

Harry nods, then licks over his sore-kissed lips, then swallows, throat working hard, then says; “wanna get tested before we do anything again.”

“Oh.” Louis slumps back against the wall. “Right. Yeah.”

“It’s just, I feel like—”

“No, yeah, you’re definitely right, it’s— that’s good. Yeah. Yeah, that’s the right thing to do, definitely.”

Harry smiles, reaching up to pet Louis’ cheek. “I wanna do this right if it’s with you, Lou. I want to, like— I don’t mind if we take things slow. The thing I’m the most scared of in the world is losing what we already have. You’re like… my person. My best friend and stuff, so… I don’t want to fuck that up.”

“I know,” Louis nods, straightening up in the name of sensibility, “I know, yeah. That’s good, I— yeah.”

“Yeah,” Harry leans in again, bumps their noses together, “I love you.”

“Love you too, Haz,” Louis murmurs against his lips as he slides his arms up to link around his neck, “we can take things as slow as you want.”

 

* 

 

Very slow, as it turns out. The rest of the weekend, neither of them do much else than lounge around in their sweats and kiss till their lips go numb. They sleep in Louis’ bed together, but watch movies or cuddle and chat, kiss with Louis’ wrists pinned above his head and then they go to sleep, blue balls and untouched hard-ons. When Harry comes home from work Monday, Louis draws him into the common-room and down on a couch and then Harry announces that he’s had his tests done in his lunch-hour and they’ll have to wait till the verdict gets in.

Louis can live with that.

But the week comes to it’s end and Harry’s been sleeping in his own room most nights, because _can’t get out of bed in time for work when you’re lying there all warm and cuddly in the mornings, Lou-eh_ , and nothing’s happened. Friday, they go for McDonald’s and an action-packed movie and pints at the pub while they watch the game, and it feels like being best mates again, like being fourteen and eighteen and twenty-two, except when they leave Harry slips his hand into Louis’ and suggest they skip the bus and walk home and when they reach home, they snog in the front hall until Niall walks through and whistles at them.

Louis thinks it’s the best first date he’s ever had.

And yet, when they go up to bed, even though Louis pried his perfectly clean test-results out of him over a Big Mac’s and nuggets, Harry is too tired, _I’ve been at work all day, let me give you a backrub or something instead, how’s that?_ Louis takes the backrub, because it’s better than nothing, he supposes, but the second he starts arching his back and grinding his bum back a bit too much, Harry calls it quits and says goodnight.

For someone who snogs Louis like he’s thirteen and about to come in his pants, Harry does have a knack for making him feel rather undesired.

It doesn’t get any better Saturday. Camille and Emmy invite a few friends over for a “lesbian soiree” and, after the booze has been brought out and Emmy’s gone to bed, Ziam invite another load of friends and soon enough it turns into something of a party.

Harry doesn’t move out of the big armchair much and Louis doesn’t move out of his lap much. As the night wears on and the bottles get drained, more kisses are exchanged and more giggles and private looks are sent toward anyone who dares ask _what’s going on between you two lovebirds lately?_ When, at some point, an alpha who was brought by someone Louis doesn’t know, who was brought by someone else Louis doesn’t know, comes up and drunkenly lays a hand on Louis’ thigh while Harry’s been to the loo, Harry marches right back and asks him to “politely” fuck off. Louis doesn’t move out of his lap at all from then on.

Ziam start snogging on the carpet like they haven’t got two kids and one more on the way and, while Louis looks because, well, they’re practically _begging_  to be watched, Harry’s gaze stops moving in that direction at all, like he’s forcing himself not to. Then Camille starts to feel up some girl she’s been working at all night, right in the chair across from Harry and Louis, and Harry starts shifting like he can’t sit comfortably.

“You all right?” Louis asks him and he nods, says _yeah, fine_  twice, but when Camille sticks her fingers into the other’s girls mouth and fucks them in and out, Harry pushes Louis up to stand and says he’s going to bed.

Louis follows him up because that was rather abrupt and Harry says he’s _just tired_ and Louis nods and then slides into bed with him.

“You were hard,” Louis says, after a minute or so’s gentle snogging. It wasn’t exactly hideable considering Louis was sat right smackbam on top of his crotch all evening, “I can take care of that for you.”

“S’okay, I’m too drunk,” Harry mutters, going straight to Louis’ wrists, pinning them down, “won’t come.”

“You’re not that drunk.”

“M’tired.”

Louis throws a thigh over to feel at his cock through his boxers, still hard as it was downstairs. “You’re not that tired.” Harry just grunts, squirming away, like it isn’t up for debate, and Louis tries to wrestle his wrists free, but Harry only tightens the grip, like that _definitely_ isn’t up for debate either, “let me suck you off,” Louis says into his mouth, and Harry gasps, entire body seizing up for a second, “yeah,” Louis breathes, spurred on and pathetically proud, “fuck my mouth, babe.”

“— _fuck_.” Harry jerks out of the kiss, hands flying off of Louis’ wrists. “I don’t, like— I don’t want it right now,” he grits out, “Lou, I’m not… you’re so, so fucking hot, but I just— I’m kind of head-achey and my stomach feels a bit funny… I’m not in the mood, I think I might be getting ill, so— not tonight.”

Louis stares at him blankly. They’ve only been snogging for a week, he reminds himself. Loads of people wait months or years for people they love. “Harry,” he says, slowly, forcing himself to calm down and not scream something like _are you not attracted to me, are you just not attracted to me, is that it?_ “I love you,” he sighs, “I’m sorry if I’ve pressured you.”

Harry bites his lip, nostrils wide. He nods. It isn’t until Louis’ turned over on his side that he lays a timid hand on his flank and presses a kiss to the back of his shoulder and says, “love you too, Lou. So much.”

 

*

 

He wakes at the dip of the mattress. It’s still dark out and there’s still noise and music downstairs and he’s pretty certain he’s only just dipped into sleep for a minute or two. In the dark, he sees Harry getting up and getting out of the room, careful not to make the slightest noise as he closes the door behind him. Louis rolls over and checks the time. He was right; it’s only been about five minutes since they went to sleep.

Hm.

He lays down again, closes his eyes and tries to fall back asleep. But—

Hm.

There was something off about the way Harry closed that door; sure, it could’ve been that he didn’t want to rip Louis out of sweet sleep. It could’ve been, but—

Hm.

Louis’ a little too tipsy to leave anything up to ‘could’ve been’.

He gets out of bed and pads out into the hall in his boxers. There’s no one out here. He goes to the top of the stairs and stops there, listens for Harry’s voice. He doesn’t hear it. He goes back toward the bedroom again, but, just before he walks in there, the light surrounding the bathroom door at the end of the hall catches his attention. If he were sober, he’d just let Harry have his shit and come back to bed. He’d just naturally assume Harry were either having the shit of the century or explosive runny tummy, and he’d avoid walking in on that at all costs.

But— hm.

He walks up to the door, which isn’t even closed properly, which really isn’t Harry’s style when he’s shitting, he’s much too meticulous about that sort of thing, needs to prepare, needs to bring a book, a snack, a three stone padlock just to make sure he keeps his privacy.

So, Louis’ been drinking and Harry’s been reckless with the door and Louis walks in on him.

Wanking.

He’s got one hand on himself, jerking fast, hard, hand so tight around his prick Louis feels bad for it, the other on his phone, some porn-video playing. His teeth are set deep in his bottom lip, nostrils flared as wide as they ever get, brows so furrowed he looks furious at the poor innocent girl getting gang-fucked in a parking lot.

So much for _might be getting ill_.

“Right,” Louis says, and Harry doesn’t hear him so he clears his throat, steps into the door and says, “really not very comfortable, that.”

Finally, Harry hears him. His head snaps up, phone dropping out of his hand, dick too, and his eyes shoot up to teacup-size. “ _Shit_ , Lou.”

“Yeah,” Louis chuckles dryly, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the jamb, “shit.”

Harry swallows thickly, adam’s apple bopping violently. Dick too. “Fuck, I was just, I—”

“Really not very comfortable, I was saying,” Louis goes on tonelessly, “getting arse-to-mouthed like that. Don’t know why she’s moaning like it is. But, to each their own, I suppose.”

“Louis, I—”

“No, it’s fine,” Louis cuts through, “just don’t bother coming to me when you’re done with that. I’m going to my own bed.”

He turns before Harry makes another wild expression, and marches for his own door.


	8. Chapter 8

Harry catches him before he reaches there. “Lou,” he hisses, and he’s tucked his dick back in his pants when Louis spins around and looks at him, “please.”

“What?” Louis puts one hand on his door handle, the other on his hip, and raises his brows at Harry, “what’s your explanation?”

Harry’s gaze flickers. “I, uhm,” he stutters out, hand still cramped around the now black-screened phone, dick still so hard the precummy head of it peeks out at the top of his boxers. Louis forces his gaze upward. “I didn’t think you had a problem with, like… porn and stuff.”

And— that’s just, “oh, _piss_ off,” Louis scoffs, “you bloody well know it’s not about the porn. I don’t give a fuck if you watch that shit, I do too, but the fact that you’d rather sneak off to the loo to pull one off to a fucking video than have your dick sucked by a real, live person, that’s the part that gets me,” he hisses, “because— because I fucking _know_ you don’t have an issue getting your dick sucked. So, so, the only possible explanation is that you’d rather pull yourself off than have _me_ suck your dick because, for some reason, the thought of  _me_ sucking your dick puts you off so much that—”

“No,” Harry exclaims, eyes wild, and he steps closer, and Louis backs up, warning him with a lifted palm, “Lou, I’m so, so, so attracted to you it’s insane, you’re so fucking hot, I wanna, I wanna—”

“You wanna what?” Louis asks, voice hard as though his entire self-esteem doesn’t hinge on Harry’s next words, “you wanna what, Harry? Tell me. Tell me, because so far it seems like you want to kiss and cuddle and that’s the extent of it. Is it some kind of Madonna-whore thing, then? You can’t fuck me and respect me the same?”

“No,” Harry huffs, “fuck no, what do you think of me?”

“I really don’t know at the moment, mate.” Louis crosses his arms over his chest, tries not to let his gaze drop to where Harry’s V-lines are twitching, “all I know is I’m not interested in a sexless relationship and you knew that about me before we started and you went into this and then— then you seem unable to get past whatever it is that makes you bloody incapable of being sexual with me—”

“I fucked you,” Harry hisses, and the words, the reminder makes Louis’ cheeks heat up. He lowers his head. “I fucked you, but you— I hurt you.”

“You didn’t hurt me, it’d just been a while,” Louis licks over his teeth, watches his own feet as he shifts weight, “and I’ve been fingering a lot lately so it won’t hurt so bad,” Harry’s breath hitches and Louis’ cock twitches, “besides,” he goes on, trying to keep the sharp tone intact, “I asked to suck your cock, that’s all.”

“Please stop saying that.”

Louis looks up. “What?”

“About you— about—” Harry’s cheeks are cherry-coloured, eyes dark, glassy, “sucking my cock, and uhm— and fingering yourself.”

“Why?” Louis straightens up, pushes his jaw out and thighs together as a bit of slick starts to accumulate, “I love sucking cock. I’d love to suck on your cock, I’d lick on your balls, too, I’d let you fuck my mouth like you did in the playroom, I’d—”

Harry cuts him off with a growl, surging forward.

“—oh, _ah_.”

Teeth collide with his shoulder, big hands grabbing him by the waist and saving him from falling, then pushing him backwards up against his bedroom door. Harry bites on him till Louis starts to wince, then let’s go with an exasperated groan and presses his sweat-hot face into the crook of Louis’ neck, whining like a baby, shaking like an animal.

“Harry,” Louis pants, looping his arms around his waist and pulling him closer, “Harry, please.”

Harry grinds into him and whines again, growls when Louis grinds back and slicks up enough to stink. His back is still tense when Louis slides his hands up the taut muscles, he’s still refraining from licking, biting, sucking, still trying to fight the instinctive hump of his own hips.

“Harry,” Louis rasps out, voice betraying him, “give in, _please_ , you can— give in, let me have you,” he grabs on Harry’s arse-cheeks, fastens the grind of his hips, feels that fat cock against his own through the thin materials of their boxers, “give it to me like you want to, please. You want me?”

“ _Fuck_ yes, I want you,” Harry growls, voice so deep Louis’ gut goes on a loop.

“So, please,” Louis pleads, “you won’t scare me off,” he lets go of Harry’s arse in favour of gliding his fingers into his long hair, letting his hairband fall to the floor, “I wanna feel how much you want me.”

Harry drops his forehead to the wall by Louis’ head then, humping him into the wall, “feel my cock,” he says, voice rough, “feel my cock, then, come on.”

“Yeah,” Louis slips a hand down to palm him through his boxers, and Harry growls out _jerk me_ and Louis slips it down past the waistband and takes it in his hand. It’s hard and thick, pulsing against him, and Harry starts fucking his hand soon as he can, groaning into his shoulder, _tighter, faster, more, moremoremore_ , “wanna feel how,” Louis breathes, because Harry looks like he could spill in his hand in a second and he hasn’t even had his hands on Louis yet, “wanna feel how alpha you are.”

Harry’s entire body shudders at the word, teeth digging into Louis’ shoulder.

“You’re so alpha, I know you are, you’re such a good one, you’re so, so big, Harry, please, I—” his voice cracks when Harry licks a fat stripe up his throat, but he clears it, speaks on; “I’m already yours, you’re— my holes, they’re yours, only yours, just use them, you can.”

That, or the way Louis thumbs over his slit right then, maybe a mixture of both, is what finally makes Harry give.

He punches at the door handle and it bows down, makes Louis fall backwards into the room, but Harry has him round the waist, growls and digs his fingers into the flesh of Louis’ slick arse, picks him off the floor.

It’s not until Harry’s thrown him backwards onto his bed and has begun ripping his boxers down his legs, that Louis realises they aren’t alone in the room. There, on the carpet in the corner across from the bed, is Camille, on top of a naked man. On top of that alpha-guy who tried it on with Louis earlier at the party. They’re mostly naked, and he’s definitely inside of her, _definitely_ alpha, from the smell of things.

They’re both frozen, staring at Louis and Harry.

“Harry—” Louis slaps at Harry’s shoulder when Harry crowds over him on all fours, naked, blood-heavy dick bopping between his legs, “fuck, there’s—”  

“Don’t care,” Harry growls, spreading Louis’ legs apart and getting in-between them. “Don’t care, let them, fuck them, fuck—” he throws an arm back, rips the sheet up to cover so they’re fully enveloped, up over their heads, and then his cockhead prods at Louis’ hole and Louis’ stomach jumps, “can I—”

“Yes, okay, yes,” Louis rambles, “yes, yeah, just— _ungh_.” Harry shoves up into him then, all the way in one go, head coming up to Louis’ as he drags himself in, grunting gutturally, “arh, fuck, _shit_.”

“Oh yeah,” Harry gasps, coming down on Louis fully, head in his neck, “oh, _fuck_ yeah, you’re so tight, you’re so hot, you’re so, so— ah, _ah_ , shit, that’s good.”

His cock is just as fat as it was last Louis had it in him and Louis is just as tight, the lazy fingerfucking he gave himself in the shower several days ago having made next to no difference, but he doesn’t say that aloud. Harry’s face is nuzzled up against Louis’, feverishly hot like the rest of him, and his mouth is open, wet, loud, growls and _fuck_ ’s and whines panted into Louis’ neck. It hurts, _fuck_ it hurts, enough that it’s almost overshadowing the good it does, but Louis doesn’t think he’s ever felt this wanted, not by Harry, so he bites his lip and holds on tight.

“Lou,” Harry babbles, “Lou, fuck, fuck, you’re such a little— _ah_ , such a little— you’re so, _ungh_ , take it.”

His back is working hard, muscles jumping under Louis’ hands, dripping in sweat, spine _sailing_ , and he’s pounding in so hard the entire bed is bouncing with it, knocking up the wall, screeching up the floors. Louis’ arsehole’s beginning to burn like it’s on fucking fire and Harry’s hips are on autopilot, snapping, snapping, snapping.

When he finally does start to lose rhythm, exceedingly close to Louis’ ultimate breaking point, his knot is so swollen that Louis sinks his teeth into his shoulder when he pushes it in.

Harry stuffs three fingers into his mouth at that, stuttering hips still humping at him, cock pulsing hard and hot up into him. Harry’s heart is hammering wildly into Louis’ chest, and his arms are shaking, his back-muscles too, violently, all the way down his dripping spine. He’s still babbling stuff, nonsensical and slurred, mouth so wet against Louis’ ear Louis thinks he might very well have bitten through his own lip and drawn blood.

“Did you come?” Louis makes out after almost a minute, and Harry is _still_ fucking coming himself, still grinding into Louis, whimpering every time he does.

“Doesn’t matter,” Louis breathes out, because he lost his wood a while back, the pain exceeding the pleasure by a little too much, but he isn’t lying to Harry. It really doesn’t matter, right now. There’ll be more than enough time to be selfish; this was about Harry. And about feeling exactly how much Harry wants him. This was incredible. “I love you.”

“Love you too,” Harry smacks a wet kiss onto his ear, then his jaw and his cheek, “you were so good, you were so, so amazing, you were just— best. Best, ever. Amazing, I love you, fuck, you’re so sweet, you’re so lovely, you were just, like… fuck.”

Louis snorts a chuckle. “Why, thanks, but I didn’t exactly do much but lay here and starfish.”

“You took me so good,” Harry pants, licking at Louis’ cheek, “and you’re you, you smell like you, you sound like you, feel like I’d imagined, like— you’re just incredible, just fucking amazing.”

“And you’re on a high, aren’t you,” Louis half-laughs, smoothing Harry’s hair back from his red-flushed face.

Harry presses a soft kiss to his lips, then lifts up and slaps the sheet back enough that it glides down his back and they can breathe in clean, cold air. He smiles down at Louis, absolutely wrecked in the face, absolutely beautiful.

Louis wants to kiss him again, but before he gets to ask, someone says; “fucking hell, guys.”

Both their heads snap sideways.

The guy is slouched back against the wall, buckling his belt and Camille is just pulling her knickers back on, tits still bare. Harry turns his gaze back to Louis.

“We tried to keep up, but that was _some_ pounding,” Camille grins, tugging her shirt down over her head.

The guy is staring at Louis, eyes dark, unnerving. His nostrils are flared and Louis has no doubt that he stinks of himself when he’s worst, that he’s having some effect on the guy whether he means to or not. He doesn’t quite fathom how he and Harry ended up fucking in the same room as those two, but from the looks of things they continued after the interruption as well.

“You okay after that? Any of you need some water?”

“Yes, please,” Louis rasps, when Harry just rests his head down and starts to lap at his neck.

Camille heads out of the room, but the bloke is still in there, still staring at Louis. He gets off his feet and doesn’t stop staring, doesn’t stop licking his lips or sniffing up scent.

“You can take one hell of a pounding,” he says, coming up to the side of the bed, “nice catch, mate,” he adds, directed at Harry.

Harry snaps his head around, finally registering him. “Oi,” he lifts up jerkily, “you. Out.”

“Jesus, calm down, I’ve been here all throughout while you fucked him and he whimpered like a little—”

“Out!” Harry shouts, “fuck off.”

The guy lifts his hands in defense, still cackling as he walks backwards out of the room. Harry glares at him until he’s gone, then turns back to Louis, dips down and licks him from his nosetip to his hairline. “Sorry. What a prick.”

“He was here all along,” Louis notes.

“Probably getting off on your scent.”

“Does that make you jealous?” Louis muses, dragging a finger over the folds in his scrunched nose.

“Mhm.” Harry smiles.

Louis follows the line of his mouth from one end to the other. “And does that get you off?”   

“No,” Harry murmurs, then bites on his finger, “not particularly.”

“Compared to everything else,” Louis grins, “since everything does seem to be able to get you going.”

Harry’s brows draw closer, a cutely offended crease forming between them, but before he has a chance to object to that statement, Camille walks back in with two glasses of water. She’s in knickers and the same white v-neck she had on during the party, and one glance across the room shows her jeans and bra lying tossed on Louis’ carpet.

“Haz, drink some before you die,” she says, and sits down at the foot of the bed.

Harry takes one of the glasses, holds Louis’ head up for him and feeds him till he splutters, then drinks the rest himself and tells Camille, “thank you.”

“No problem.” She’s shaped her legs into a pretzel and has drawn one of Louis’ pillows into her lap. “Sorry ‘bout fucking in your room without permission, Lou,” he says, when Harry’s lied down on him again, and Louis is drawing his fingers through his hair in long, lazy strokes. “But we didn’t wanna wake Emmy and Harry’s room was taken when we got up.”

“Head’s up next time, please. I’ll put rose petals out.”

She smiles.

“What happened to that, uhm…” Harry drawls, half-asleep already, finger drawing little hearts in Louis’ open palm, “that girl.”

“Turns out she wasn’t really gay below the waist,” Camille sighs, “typical ’bi curious’ bullshitter.”

“Be nice.”

“Well, it’s true,” she exclaims, “in my experience. Anyway, I went with the second best option,” she says, and, judging by the way he jerks, pinches Harry’s calf, “since you’re not available any longer, eh?” She grins at Louis and Louis reciprocates it, even as he feels a bit odd. He doesn’t like to be reminded of Harry and her. He doesn’t like to be reminded that they haven’t actually talked about what this thing means yet and whether it entails exclusivity. “I was his second option too, though,” she goes on, “wanted you, didn’t he, Lou?”

“Who doesn’t,” Harry drawls, and Camille rolls her eyes and Louis slaps him fondly over the cheek. He’s still shaking, a bit. Pulsing, in areas.

“But I suppose he wouldn’t have been able to, either,” Camille says, “what with Harry dagger-eyeing him all night.”

“Well, he was being bloody disrespectful,” Harry says. Louis snorts a laugh, cheeks heating a bit, but Harry doesn’t twitch. “He _was_ , he was putting his hands on Lou and everything, I don’t understand the nerve of some people, it’s ridiculous.”

Camille makes eyes at Louis, which Harry doesn’t see. “Possessive, are we?” she chuckles, “what’s going on with you two, anyway? Haz hasn’t looked at me below the neck in over a week, I was beginning to fear I’d let myself go.”

Harry doesn’t say anything to that.

“You look lovely,” Louis says, because it’s true and he can’t come up with anything else, “we’re just cuddling a bit sometimes,” he adds after a beat, though, as if Harry isn’t still fucking _inside_ of him.  

“Right,” Camille smiles, impish and dopey, “well, on that understatement of the year, I’ll be going back to the misses for a cuddle too. Goodnight, babes.”

“G’night.”

“Night,” Harry says on a bit of a gasp, like he just dozed off and got jerked back awake. “Night, night, thanks for the water and the… watching us fuck. G’night.”

After she’s switched off the big light and closed the door behind her, Louis rearranges them as best he can, then forcefeeds Harry some more water because his heart is still racing a bit on top of that violent fuck, and Louis really doesn’t want their first fuck ever to be their last one, too. 

 

*

 

He wakes in the morning with a sore, unstuffed arsehole, but a Harry nonetheless still wrapped around him. He’s been out, it seems, had a shower and somehow managed to put fresh boxers on both himself and Louis without waking him. Now he’s drawing invisible artworks on Louis’ chest with his fingertip, licking his neck and shoulder intermittently.

“Goodmorning,” Louis says, rolling onto his side and smiling drowsily. His arse burns like a thousand forest-fires, but he does an all right job at repressing the instinctual anguished grimace, he thinks. “Slept well?”

Harry rakes his fingers through Louis’ fringe, eyes soft. “Mhm, you?”

“Brilliantly. Had this great big heavy man-child snoring on top of me, though, got a bit difficult to breathe at times.”

“Shit, Lou, you should’ve—”

Louis chuckles. “Relax, I like you on top of me,” he says and Harry’s nostrils twitch in a way that makes his morning-wood do the same, “I like feeling all of your weight and your… warmth and licks.”

“Licks?”

“Yeah,” Louis tilts his head, smile widening, “you lick a bit in your sleep. These careful little kitten-licks. Not very alpha at all, but very cute, though, very asexually adorable, like a puppy or a baby, you know?”

“Fuck off,” Harry laughs and tries to twist Louis’ nipple, but Louis slaps his hand off, then catches his wrist and draws him closer. Harry comes and rests on his chest, fingers running up the inside of Louis’ arm till they find his hand and thread together with Louis’. “Love you,” he murmurs against the faint hairs on Louis’ sternum. “I’m sorry about last night, but thank you for letting me. It was really nice to get to knot you.”

“What are you apologising for?” Louis chuckles, digging his free hand into the back of Harry’s hair and pulling on it gently to make him look up, “it was great for me too.”

“You didn’t even come, I was way too rough.”

It’s true and it isn’t, Louis thinks. He was too rough for Louis to come, but he wasn’t too rough for what they both needed last night. He’d never felt anyone want him so violently before and it was nothing short of exhilarating.

“Sometimes I like it rough,” Louis says, careful with his words because he can tell by Harry’s teacup-eyes that it’s detrimental to the rest of their sex-life that he doesn’t whine too badly. “Sometimes I like it slow and sweet. Doesn’t have to be the same every time, but that doesn’t mean every time isn’t great in it’s own way, does it?”

“But I hurt you. Didn’t I?”

“Sometimes it’s good to hurt a little.”

“I never want to hurt you.”

Louis smiles at his sweet, childish face and dips down to kiss him right on his frown, “Haz,” he says, “you didn’t hurt me. You were lovely.”

“I don’t want to— uhm,” Harry swallows thickly, hand tensing up in Louis’, “I don’t want to be, uhm... I don’t want to fuck anything up by being… I don’t know. Too much, I guess. I don’t want to be too much for you and fuck us up.”

Louis kisses him again because this moment is tender and Harry needs reassurance and Louis wants to give him that as well as everything else he ever needs. “H, we’ve been living out of each other’s pockets for years. If I could get too much of you, I think I’d have had it by now, yeah?” He smiles, “and if you’re talking sex stuff, then I think the same thing goes. I’m pretty insatiable when I’m really into someone.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Louis bops his nose, just to be disgustingly too much, “you can’t be too much for me, love. I want all of you.”

“Okay, I— okay, yeah. Thank you. I, uhm, I— can I suck you off now?”

Louis laughs. “Be my guest.”

 

*

 

In the past, in relationships, Louis’ usually been the one with the higher sex-drive. Never by extreme amounts, never to a point that it became a problem, but the point is, he doesn’t think he’s ever been the one with the _lower_ libido. He’s always been up for it, once he had someone he really liked.

In the beginning, it seems he and Harry are pretty perfectly suited in that sense; waking up ten minutes early for quick morning-humps facedown in the mattress, going to bed half an hour early for wild, drawn-out several-orgasm sessions, they never seem to tire each other out. It’s incredible, getting to have every bit of Harry like he’s never had him before. In the beginning, the idea of ever refusing him seems impossible to Louis; he’s been deprived for so long he’s got to spend every possible opportunity he can, catching up.

Well.

Two weeks in, Louis does come to terms with a new fact; he’s in his first relationship as the lower libido’ed half. 

Not _low_ libido, mind you, just low- _er_. Lower than _Harry’s_. If it’s up to Harry, it seems, they’ll be fucking any chance they’re able to get their dicks so much as half-chubbed, all day every day. They fuck in the evening, in the morning, twice a day every day without fail, all day on the weekends, and yet Harry still starts calling him in his lunch-hour, asking what he’s wearing, if he’s wet, if he’s interested in stuffing a few fingers up his own arse and maybe sending a few pics for visual proof, sending visual proof of his own whether Louis asks for them or not. He comes home from work, drags Louis out of the playroom and into the loo to jerk off or suck off or even fuck, anything he’s up for, anything he’ll let happen, will happen.

And— it’s hot, it’s so fucking hot. Being the lower-libido partner has an undeniable effect on one’s self-esteem; Louis doesn’t think he’s ever felt as wanted in his entire life as he does right now.

Or as fucking exhausted.


	9. Chapter 9

They’re in the shower one Tuesday morning, just meaning to save time because Louis’ taking the kids to a reading at the library which stupidly starts at nine, and Harry’s got work around the same time. And yet Louis isn’t at all surprised when _just saving time_ turns into _just taking advantage_ before he’s hardly fixed the right water-temperature.

“Two birds in one stone, hm,” Harry murmurs against the nape of his neck as he starts to rub up against him.

Louis bats his hand away when it reaches for his prick. Harry sucked him off while jerking himself just fifteen minutes ago, after waking Louis inhumanely early, and Louis may be young, but he doesn’t think he’s ever not been too old for two rounds in less than half an hour. At least not on top of doing that exact thing just last night.

“Ease off, horndog,” he says dryly, batting Harry’s hand off a second time and reaching for the shampoo. “I’m not a machine.”

Harry whines something in objection at that, but Louis’ a bit too concerned with what he does with his hands then to properly listen.

“Hey!” he jumps, accidentally squirting a big gunk of white shampoo up against the wall, which is, well— a fitting visual, if things go as Harry seem to have planned. “Hands off the bum! I told you it was off limits for at least a day after last night!”

He squirms out of Harry’s arms just to be on the safe side, but when he turns and finds Harry tugging at his fully hard self again, eyes dark and glazed and horribly unfamiliar like they tend to get when he’s too far gone to stop, he realises this won’t work.

“Right,” he sighs, perhaps a bit exasperatedly, and pulls the shower-curtain, “so I’ll add this to the list, then.” He steps out onto the bath-mat, dripping wet and not one bit cleaner than he was when he stepped into the shower. “Of things we can’t do together now without it turning immediately sexual.”

He doesn’t turn to look at Harry and Harry doesn’t answer him. Well, not unless panting and growling low under his breath constitutes as an answer. Irritated at having been woken more than fifteen minutes earlier than he needed to be, plus this whole situation, Louis tugs a random fluffy pink housecoat off a hanger and ties it angrily around his waist. Fuck it if Harry’s going to stand there, jerking off to the look of him.

“Hurry up, then,” he says, getting his shaving gear out just to have something to distract himself with. He may be much too tired to fuck, but he doesn’t trust himself not to slick up, even if just a little bit, if he looks over at Harry while he gets himself off. “I’ve got to shower after you, it seems.”

Harry makes a throaty broken-off noise and Louis can’t help but look over at him.

He’s steadied an arm up against the tiles, and his forehead against the arm, and his eyes are squeezed hard shut, his mouth and jaw tense, twitching. “Fuck, I’m trying,” he croaks, “fuck, I can’t come like this, Lou, I’ve—”

“Then stop fucking _trying_ to come, no one’s forcing you to drain yourself absolutely cum-less every single—”

“Can you say something?” Harry gasps through it, and he opens his eyes then, but soon as Louis asks him what it is he needs to say, screws them shut again. “Just, uhm, uhm—”

“Alpha?” Louis suggests, just because he’s running out of time and if firing off a few filthy nothings is all he needs to do to speed Harry’s process and get to the fucking shower, it isn’t a massive sacrifice. “You’re such a good alpha, is that, does that—”

“Can, no, uhm— and… fuck…” he opens his eyes again, rough hand yanking away at his poor over-used cock, face blood-red and sweaty, “something like, like— can you take that robe off? Can you, and, can— please, just please, please, Lou, I need you, I need more, just—”

He’s cut off by the door flying open.

“Oh,” Nick blurts, eyes widening a bit when he sees Louis and then a lot when, a second later, he sees Harry. “Shit.”

Harry’s eyes dart over to Nick, who’s wearing nothing but a pair of little red briefs and that chap-stick that makes his lips look like he’s just given amazing head for three hours. And Louis sees it, right then; whether intentional or not, Harry bites into his lip to drown a growl, nostrils flaring, hips stuttering, fucking into his hand.

Nick stares back at him, some mix of incredulity and amazement stuck on his face, then snaps his gaze a way and fixes it on Louis. “Shit, I’ve just had a wank,” he says, brows scrunching apologetically, “was coming in to wash my slick off.”

Harry growls, and then comes, finally, and when Louis looks over at him a second later, he’s looking at Nick’s near-naked body.

“Get out,” Louis says, to Nick first and then Harry, “get out, I’ve got to shower.”

“Louis, I’m—”

“I said, get the fuck out!”

 

*

 

Louis manages not to get arsefucked for exactly as long as he needs to recuperate, but only because he takes a violent head-hanging-off-the-foot-of-the-bed-throatfucking instead. The one he retaliates with leaves Harry broken-voiced for two days after, but the rest of him continues to function just as well as always; just as well as Louis almost wishes it didn’t.

“Is that normal?” he asks Emmy one early noon, rubbing her back in the corner of the playroom.

“Yeah, I mean, - oh, yeah, that’s the spot - Cami’s got a higher drive than me. She’s - ah, _god_ , I love you - she’s always up for it. It used to drive me insane, having to tell her no all the time. Her too, I think.”

Louis digs his thumbs into the dimples at the bottom of her spine while keeping an eye on Erin as she stares a bit too hungrily at a tiny toy-gun. “But, what, so— so, it’s not weird that I’m wishing he’d calm down a bit? I mean, it’s so early on, shouldn’t we be, like— shouldn’t I be happy that he wants to jump me every chance?”

“I suppose,” Emmy murmurs, head dropping down between her shoulders as he rubs deep circles, “but, what is— how much exactly is it? Is it, like, what, twice a day or—”

“Try six.”

“Six?!” Emmy looks back to see if he’s joking, then drops her head, laughing, “get it, Harry.”  

Louis plops his forehead down on the back of her shoulder, groaning. “It’s not even funny anymore. My default bum-sensation is mild forest-fire.”

“Default bum-sensation... are you even supposed to have one?”

“Yeah, like— the norm would be sort of, like… am I about to s-h-i-t? No? Okay, then I’m not supposed to be able to _feel_ my bumhole.”

Emmy gives a frightened laugh. Louis joins in, frightened mostly at the fact that he isn’t joking in the slightest about any of it.

“Well, then stop doing a-n-a-l for a bit,” Emmy murmurs after a while, as if it’s just that easy.

“My throat wouldn’t survive it.”

“Well, then, no mouth-stuff either.”

“My urethra wouldn’t survive it.”

“Oh my _god,_ Louis,” she groans, slapping back at him. “That’s horrible.”

“I know,” Louis sighs, “but I almost wouldn’t put it past him at this point,” he mutters and, when she shoots an incredulous look back at him, he adds, “kiidding. I was totally kiiidding, he’s a bit wild, but he isn’t perverted. He’s normal, he’s just got a high s-e-x drive. He’s totally normal. He is.”

 

*

 

He continues to tell himself that the next little while. Even when Harry appears out of nowhere and tugs Louis into a public restroom because Louis texted him he had a dentist appointment at the place right round the corner from his work. Even when Harry locks himself in the loo in the middle of Kate’s birthday celebration to wank off to some phone-porn because Emmy’s babydoll-nursing demonstrating was too sexual for him to handle. Even when Harry walks off with a not-so-easily-concealable bulge in his jeans just from chatting casually to a half-dressed Nick, and Louis ends up asking Nick if he could tone it down a bit from now on, just to blame it on Nick and not have to accept that it’s Harry who’s in the wrong.

He continues for much longer than most sane people would.

And, if he’s honest with himself, Louis doesn’t think he’d ever lie to himself for this long over this much for anyone in the world other than Harry. If he’s utterly and completely honest with himself, it’s because he still feels grateful.

Harry’s actually attracted to him. Harry. Harry, after all these years of _what would it feel like to touch him there?_ and _what would it feel like to have him touch me back?_ and _when will I ever stop torturing myself, wanting this, when I know deep down it’s never going to happen?_  Harry wants _him_. Harry _wants_ him.

All the _fucking_ time.

One evening, when Emmy’s gone up to lay down, back-achey and baby-sick, and Louis’ taken over her spot on tonight’s dinner-team, Harry comes home and Louis’ stomach tightens up.

Not with excitement. Not with anticipation. Not with desire. With fear. With _oh christ, here we go again_.

“Oh, hi, mate, dinner’s just in a sec,” he hears Liam say from the common-room.

“Great, uhm…” Louis’ hand clenches up around the tomato he’s just sliced in half, contents splattering out on the cutting-board. “Where’s Lou-eh?”

“In the kitchen,” Liam, the traitor, replies easily, “he’s just finishing up with the salad, he’s on his own.”

Which is the single worst possible thing one could say to a Harry just arrived back from work.

“Hey, Lou,” Harry says, not five seconds later, opening the kitchen-door, “you look nice.”

Louis glances over at him. “You too,” he says, because it’s the truth. He does look nice, all corporate in a neatly ironed buttondown, tucked into pinstriped work-trousers, two fingers holding onto the matching blazer he’s slung over his shoulder. He looks so absolutely fuckable. Just not right now. “How was your day?”

“Fine, thank you,” Harry says and, when Louis makes the mistake of turning back to his cutting-board, sliding up behind him, “just couldn’t stop thinking about you.” He curls his big hands around the juts of Louis’ hipbones and flattens his tongue out on the nape of his neck while he sniffs him in.

Louis wriggles his head a bit. “I smell all right?”

“Absolutely amazing,” Harry murmurs, voice gone low and growly, right in the wrong direction.

“Dinner’s in less than a minute.” Louis tilts his head away from Harry’s tongue. Harry takes that as an invitation to flatten said tongue out up the side of his neck. “Easy, tiger,” Louis chuckles, skin prickling just by default, “not right now, Harry, I’ve got to finish up.”

“Mhm, me too,” Harry murmurs, pressing up against him then, and— yeah. Yeah, of course. It really shouldn’t surprise him that it goes that fast with Harry anymore. Used to flatter him, but now it just seems—

“Are you always this horny?”

Harry’s hips still where they’d just begun grinding into Louis. “Wha’?”

“Are you always this horny with people or is it just a me-thing? Think I can count the times I’ve seen you _not_ hard on one hand since we started fucking. You’re insatiable.”

Harry’s thumbs dig into the flesh of Louis’ hips. It hurts a little, but it feels unintentional so Louis doesn’t say anything. “You are too,” Harry murmurs, voice off. Small. “You said you— you want it too, all the time, you said you—”

“Yeah,” Louis cuts off, emptying the cutting-board of juiceless tomato-chunks into the salad-mix and stepping out of Harry’s embrace, “yeah, it’s fine, Haz. Just, not right now. Dinner’s on.”

Harry opens his mouth to object, so before he can speak, Louis shouts, at the top of his lunges; “DINNER’S READY!! EVERYONE, DINNER’S ON, DINNER’S ON, EVERYONE GATHER AT THE TABLEEEE!”

 

-

 

Everyone’s just begun finding their spots when Louis catches Harry about to slip away.

“Where are you going?”

Harry stops at the bottom of the stairs, hand clenching up around the phone he’d already pulled out, too impatient to be subtle, and his head drops.

“Harry?” Louis pushes.

Most of the other’s are seated now, just waiting for Harry and Louis to join before they start eating, but Louis isn’t budging. He knows where Harry’s going and what he’s going there for, and tonight, maybe because he had to cook, maybe because Harry doesn’t even bother trying to hide it anymore, maybe because he’s just had one too many nights of too little sleep, Louis can’t bite his tongue any longer.

“You going off to wank, then?” he asks, “your food’ll get cold, just saying.”

Harry lifts his head slowly, back of his neck stiff. “I need a piss,” he says, and if Louis didn’t know he was lying already, the deep, gruff rasp of his voice would do it.

“Need your phone with you for that?”

Harry turns, slow, heavy steps. His eyes are dark, his work-trousers tight were they stretch over his hard-on. He swallows loudly. “I just need five minutes.”

“Five minutes means ten,” Louis says, because he knows through experience at this point, “and everybody’s waiting for you.”

Harry bites his lip, eyes going round, pleading. “Louis, I’ll just be five minutes,” he half-whispers.

His feet are tripping, his trousers close to ripping, and Louis immediately regrets saying; “have you no self-control what so ever?”

Harry’s face falls. It just— falls. For a second, Louis’ actually convinced he might cry.

“Hey, no, I’m sorry, darling, it—”

“No, you’re right,” Harry cuts through, stuffing his phone back in his pocket and pushing past Louis, “you’re right, it’s pathetic, it’s _fucking_ pathetic.”

He marches into the diningroom, Louis half-running after him, and somehow manages to find a chair, rip it out and sit down before anyone notices the bulge in his trousers. Louis takes the chair across from him, because it’s the only one available. He tries to engage in conversation with Liam, does his very best to pretend not to have once again forgotten what it is that he does for a living, great best friend that he is, and fails miserably at everything.

Mostly because he can’t stop looking over at Harry.

They’re less than ten minutes into dinner and Harry is fidgeting, dropping cutlery onto the floor, knocking glasses over, shifting his legs around under the table, accidentally kicking Louis’ shin every other minute. His face goes from healthily red-cheeked to soft-pink all over to red all over to fucking burgundy. He’s sweating profusely, he’s eating too fast and then not at all, he’s pinned his gaze to a candlestick in front of himself and not moved it for five minutes straight.

When Louis drops his own fork as a result of the distraction, crawls down to get it and sees Harry’s hand clutching his own crotch, it gets to be too much.

“Right,” he hisses lowly, getting up and out of his chair.

He doesn’t look back as he slips away.

When, seconds after he’s left the room, he hears fast footsteps and panting behind him, he isn’t remotely surprised, though.

“Louis, I—”

“Yeah,” Louis cuts through sharply, not slowing down for a second. He takes the stairs two steps at a time and Harry continues to be behind him, like he’s purposely trying not to catch up to Louis, like he’s afraid that if he does, he might have to look him in the eye. He might have to let Louis see the full state of him.

Harry follows him all the way up into their loo.

“Lou, you—”

Louis turns around and drops to his knees without looking at him. “Shut up,” he says, beginning to yank at Harry’s belt-buckle, “just— shut up and don’t take fucking ages.”

 

*

 

That same evening, they watch The Talented Mr. Ripley in the common-room with a bunch of the others. Well, they watch The Talented Mr. Ripley until Harry gets so affected by the bathtub-scene between Jude Law and Matt Damon that he gets up and marches out of the room. Louis gets angry, he really does, but he also gets a bit hard because the bathtub-scene _is_ quite steamy, so he goes upstairs and rides Harry for half an hour.

They watch the rest of the movie on Louis’ iPad afterwards, and then Louis turns it off and turns over. And then Harry turns with and begins to rub off on him.

 

*

 

“Maybe you should try the open thing,” Emmy says the next evening, when they’re both off dinner-duty, watching over the hot repairman as he fixes the telly.

Harry isn’t home yet, but he will be in a minute and Louis can already feel the fear creeping up on him. He hates that it’s become like this; that his body’s begun associating the possibility of a horny Harry with something to be frightened of. It isn’t like he doesn’t enjoy their sex; some of the sex they’ve had has been the best sex he’s _ever_ had. It’s just that it gets, well— exhausting.

“The open thing?” Louis mutters, chewing on his nail as Repairman bends down to pick something off the floor. He can’t even find it in himself to appreciate the sight of it; he’s so sexually drained he thinks he’s slowly losing the ability to be aroused without friction.

“Yeah, like me and Cami,” Emmy says, “doesn’t have to be like us, but you can, like— you can give him permission to go off once in a while if he’s really needing to fuck stuff out of his system and you just aren’t up for it.”

Louis finally looks over at her. “Wha’? Like, let him fuck other people?”

“Yeah.”

“I think I’m too jealous, though,” Louis sighs, after half a second’s semi-deliberation, “and I’ve seen and heard him get off with other people before, it hurt like fucking hell. Don’t think it’d any be better now that we’re together.”

Emmy fish-mouths. “You never know,” she says, “knowing you’re in control of it might make you feel differently. If you guys sit down and talk about it, you can make exact rules for what he can and cannot do. Like, if you don’t want him to fuck the same person more than, say, three times, you put that down as a no-no. And then…”

“But wouldn’t it have to be mutual?” Louis asks her, even though he isn’t really considering it at all. He’d rather be without Harry if being with him meant having to know he went elsewhere too. So far Harry hasn’t expressed any sort of interest in it, and if he did, Louis doesn’t like to think of how he’d react.

“Yeah, obviously, you can ask for it to be mutual. If you’re letting him fuck other people, he’d probably let you too. Otherwise it’s kind of one-sided, innit?”

“Right, yeah,” Louis mutters, as Repairman gets up and awkwardly wavers, not wanting to impose on their conversation just to say bye.

“But do you think he’d let you go with other people too?” Emmy asks.

Harry walks in from the front-hall then, nostrils flaring, eyes immediately zeroing in on the other alpha in the room. His brows draw together.

“I was just leaving,” Repairman says, smiling at Louis, “TV should be good to go now.”

“Let me walk you out,” Louis says, getting up, but before he gets a chance, Harry walks right in between and says; “no, let me, I’m closer to the door”. He slaps a hand onto Repairman’s back and near-shoves him out of the house, still not missing the opportunity to somehow slip the words _my boyfriend_ into the conversation first.

Louis gives Emmy a knowing look. “I think that’s a no.”

“I think you may be right,” Emmy grins, “you don’t look too disappointed, though.”

“It’s all right, it’s all right, we’ll cope,” Louis says, throwing his head coquettishly, but the embarrassing little giggle that comes with isn’t all act. They’re boyfriends, then. Proper don’t-touch-my-boyfriend-boyfriend’s. He’s really got him. Sure, he’s a lot to handle, but Louis’ really got him, all to himself, Louis’ finally got him. 

He gets up and finds Harry in the hall, just having slammed and locked the door behind the much too handsome other alpha.

“Hey, babe,” Louis says, smiling from ear to ear as he comes toward him, can’t help it.

“Oh, hey, great,” Harry says, face lighting up, “thought you might want to go a quick round before dinner? I’ve not been able to stop thinking about fucking you all day.”

“Right,” Louis steps falter, but Harry moves forward so fast his smell overwhelms Louis a little. He’s definitely hard again, even if just a little, even if not enough to show through his trousers, he’s hard again. Like he always is. “Yeah, okay, let’s go then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t like long author’s notes because you come here to read Larry-fic, not read some strangers diary, but I felt like I wanted to address a couple things and you can totally just skip this if you’re not interested:
> 
> 1.Sorry to anyone I’ve genuinely hurt/offended with the bisexual stereotyping-thing. I do understand that that’s a stereotype people have to deal with, I just hadn’t understood that it was as bad as some of you have now told me it is. My own personal sexual identity is pretty much identical to Harry’s in all of my fics save for WWB (because he outright labels it) and Waterbridge, and I’ve never experienced any of the issues that’ve hurt some of you, so I guess I've been a bit blind them. Maybe I just live in a lucky country, I don’t know, but I’m still sorry and I’ll definitely keep it in mind from now on. Also, anything you ever see me re-do over and over (dynamics, Harry being into both men and women, Harry being someone who enjoys a lot of sex with what some may consider to be a lot of different people, even Harry having greasy hair/not showering alot), it’s never been to show anyone negatively. I write romantic fanfiction with graphic smut in it, so if you see me re-doing anything, even if it seems to you negative, I can promise you I only ever do it because it’s a personal kink. (YES, even Harry smelling like sweat/not showering for a day or two too many). That said, I’m still sorry for having accidentally fed into stereotypes / offensive stuff because I’ve put my own personal ideas of what’s hot above everything else.
> 
> 2\. In all of the time I’ve posted fics on ao3, I have never, ever, EVER commented anonymously on any of my own fics. You (the person who accused me of that) don’t know me privately, so you don’t know why I wasn’t able to write/post/check comments in a bit, but if you did, I’m pretty certain you wouldn’t be saying the things that you have.
> 
> 3\. Thanks to everyone who've been nice and defended me, and also thanks to everyone who gave me criticism in a constructive, nice and polite way. I do appreciate that :)


	10. Chapter 10

Louis lifts off just as Harry starts to come and Harry can’t stifle the instinctive whine that escapes his throat at not getting to breed him, or at least feel as though he did. He comes up between their stomachs as Louis slumps down on him, sweaty and slack and shaking with exhaustion. Last time he rode Harry, it took a little less for time for him to come, the time before that even less, and the one before that half the time. The more they do this, the harder it gets; the longer he’ll watch Louis force himself far past what’s comfortable, far past what’s healthy, just to get Harry there too.

Worst part is Harry never regains the sense to tell him he doesn’t have to before it’s already over. Before his head feels clear again, just for a minute or five, and the guilt washes over him in big heavy waves, sitting still on his chest, pressing down every time he looks Louis in the eye, feels him trembling like this.

“I love you,” he breathes, because he means it and he feels so, so guilty for exposing someone he loves this much to someone like himself, “you’re so good, you’re so fucking gorgeous, you’re so good, you’re so, so, so—”

Louis slaps a sweaty hand over his mouth. “You know how some guys cry when they come, Harry?” he rasps, voice vibrating against the crook of Harry’s neck, “well, _you_ ramble. Like, you just— go absolute full on mouth-diarrhea, it’s like a bloody a disease, you can’t control yourself.”

“Your idea of full on mouth-diarrhea is me saying you’re gorgeous?” Harry asks, mostly to turn the topic away from what’s wrong with himself, “jesus, learn to take a compliment.”

Louis cackles softly against his skin. “You’re like, like, like, _so_ good, like— like, so, so, so, like, what’s the word?” he mocks, “uhm, like, oh yeah, good, that’s the word. You’re so, so good and like, so—”

“Fine, I’ll never say what I think again,” Harry mopes.

Louis lifts up a little, looking down at him, brows arched. Harry keeps the pouty-face on. “Oh, don’t be such a big baby,” he exclaims, “you’re good too.” He tilts his head, grinning. “Like, _so_ good.”

His eyes look the sweetest blue in this light, lips pink, bitten into, golden skin still covered in a light sheen of sweat. His fringe falls into his eyes and he reaches up and flicks it aside with a loose little wrist-move. Then he looks up at the window above the headboard, eyes glinting as they catch the last bit of evening-sun, a tiny bead of sweat running down the sharp corner of his jaw, continuing on until it settles in the deep dip of his collarbone.

It’s in moments like these; ten, or five, sometimes only three, minutes after Harry’s come, that he most loves looking at Louis; when he gets to just watch, just appreciate, just feel everything that comes with loving someone for so much more than only sex. It’s the only time he ever gets where everything he sees isn’t obstructedby lust-coloured glasses. Where he fully trusts his own feelings.

“I’m so in love with you.”

Louis’ gaze flicks back down to meet his. His lashes flutter a bit. “What?”

“I am,” he says, and when Louis presses his lips together, little crease forming between his brows, adds, “in love with you.”

Louis licks over his lips and shifts his gaze down. “Don’t say that if—”

“I’m not,” Harry cuts through, grabbing him when he starts to pull away, pulling him back in, “I’m not saying it ‘if’. I’m just saying it because. I am.”

Louis stills again, hands still flat on Harry’s chest, arms bent. He draw his bottom lip in, brows still creasing, eyes studying Harry. “So is that why you’re so, ehm— or are you really always just— you know.”

“What?” Harry asks, even though he knows exactly what Louis means. His heart takes off, starts to gallop, and he doesn’t want the consequences of telling the truth, but he wants to lie to Louis even less, so he says; “I’m always really just.”

Louis shoulders sink. “Okay.”

“But you’re— I don’t want anybody like this. Like I want you. I never have. I mean it. I’ve never, uhm—  I’ve never wanted to be faithful before. To just one person. I think this is the longest I’ve gone with just one partner at a time, you know.”

Louis snorts, dropping his chin. “Well, that’s reassuring.”

Harry’s throat clogs up. “No, I’m, I mean— I’m never gonna, uhm. I’d rather kill myself than cheat on you, Lou. I swear, I’d never, ever, _ever_ —”

“I know,” Louis says, snapping his head up again, small smile smeared on, “I know you wouldn’t, I was just— half-jokey, I guess. I know you wouldn’t,” he flicks Harry’s chest, then smiles properly, “and I wouldn’t either, for that matter. Cheat on you.”

“Good,” Harry says, because it really is; he wouldn’t like to have to kill some guy. “Good, I was getting worried with that repairman,” he teases, but studies Louis intently soon as he’s said it. The guy _was_ uncomfortably good looking and stinkingly alpha and _did_ smile at Louis a bit too widely.

Louis just slaps him over the chest, snorting a laugh. “He was hot, though,” he says, throwing a leg over Harry and then stepping out of bed, “come on, we’ve got dinner.”

“He wasn’t that hot.”

“We do have dinner, though.”

“But he wasn’t that hot.”

“Okay. But he was, though.”

“Louis, it’s not fuckin’ funny, I know alpha’s, I know the look he had on his face, it’s the same look I have when I look at you, it’s fucking repulsive.”

“Wow, you’ve got some self-esteem issues, mate. I mean, you’re a bit of a minger, but you’re not ’fucking _repulsive_ ’.”

Harry kicks him in his sorefucked arse. Then watches it jiggle. Then screws his eyes shut and thinks of his grans knickers while he counts down from a hundred.

 

*

 

They wipe off and get dressed, - Louis drags one of Harry’s sweaters over his head and has the sleeves dangling beneath his stretched fingertips and slaps Harry with the abundant fabric when Harry tells him he looks like one of those cute pink-haired girls on Tumblr - and reach downstairs just in time for dinner. The assigned team of the night dish up with a nice vegan meal which is refreshing after last night’s fat red steaks, although Louis just scrunches his nose and rearranges his zucchini-noodles on the plate to make it look like he ate something.

“I’ll trade you my potatoes for those,” Harry’s just muttering to him when someone across the table drowns him out.

“Eh, Lou-eh?” Zayn’s yelling, waggling his brows. He’s sitting between Emmy and Camille, who’s wearing an unnecessarily low-cut top tonight, left nipple almost peeking out.

Harry shifts his gaze to Emmy, who’s got on a turtleneck, and re-opens his ears.

“And those arms,” Emmy’s gushing, “and that arse, huh?”

“Yeah,” Louis’ laughing.

Harry frowns, looking to Louis, who’s got his chin rested in his palm and the sort of eyebrow-waggling, widespread smirk on his lips that Harry loves a fucking lot, provided that it’s only ever directed at himself.

He coughs, gets no attention, then clears his throat and keeps staring at the side of Louis’ face. “Who?” 

“Just the repair guy,” Emmy says, “goddamn fine peace of man.”

“Amen,” Zayn says, highfiving her.

“Word,” Liam says, lifting his hand for a high-five too and then slowly lowering it when he realises no one’s going to notice him.

Harry turns his gaze to Emmy. “That guy I showed out?”

“Yeah,” Emmy grins, gaze flicking right off of Harry and over to Louis, even as Harry feels like he’s arrested her soul, so hard he’s staring. “Very entertaining. Watching him fix the telly and… that…”

Harry coughs. “Hey, that’s objectifying,” he says, but he gets the inflection all wrong and Louis thumbs at the side of his thigh under the table.

“Aw, Harry’s jelly,” Camille sings, but Harry continues not to look remotely in her direction anymore. Maybe if she’d put on a fucking shirt. _Proper_ shirt.  

He looks down at his plate. Louis’ stolen his potatoes.

“I’m not jealous, just pointing out the very real case of alphaism that’s going on at this table,” he mutters, “you guys think we’re all just a bunch of ridiculously handsome objects for you to fawn over.”

“Yeah,” Niall shouts from the end of the table, “ridiculously handsome, all of us.”

“Especially that repairman,” Louis pips, and a vast majority of the table laughs despite it not being funny in the slightest.

Harry doesn’t say anything, hoping the topic will naturally change into something that doesn’t make his chest heat and tug together at the middle. That doesn’t make him want to make the sort of snappy remarks he tends to pride himself on never making.

But then Emmy says; “you guys should’ve seen Lou when he arrived, touching his arm every other second, giggling like a thirteen-year-old, he was all over the place, it was incredible.”

The table laughs, and Louis whine-giggles “oh please, you’re exaggeratiiiing”, and Harry’s hand clenches into a white-knuckled fist around his fork.

Louis thumbs at his thigh again. And when, after the topic’s finally changed, - to something as aggravatingly arousingas how Camille got herself out of a speeding ticket on her way home from work today - Louis does it again. And when, after a couple seconds, Harry still hasn’t reacted, or moved, or even lifted his gaze from his potato-less plate, again.

“What?” Harry hisses, snapping his head up.

Louis’ eyes widen, his head backing up. “Nothing,” he breathes, “nothing, are you cross? Did I do something?”

“No,” Harry says.

“Well, why are you being all— weird?”

“I’m always weird.”

“No, you’re always wannabe-weird. You’re rarely _actually_ weird. What’s the matter with you?”

Harry takes a deep breath in through his nostrils, which doesn’t help anything because Louis’ sitting close enough to smell, and tries to calm himself. Louis didn’t do anything wrong. The guy was into him and disgustingly obvious about it, but Louis didn’t do anything wrong. He doesn’t deserve to get moaned at. “Nothing,” he says, “I just couldn’t contribute much to the conversation, that’s all. Cause I don’t see what everybody else see.”

“What do you mean?”

Harry shrugs a shoulder and then begins to shovel Louis’ zucchini onto his own plate just to have something to do with his hands. “I just mean, that… that, like, I don’t see that he was _that_ hot. He wasn’t ugly, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t see—”

“Oh my fuckin’ balls, you are _so_ jealous,” Louis barks, “ah, this is priceless, you’re all red in the face, I love it.”

“Shut up,” Harry mutters, attempting to wrap the disgusting cucumber-shit around his fucking fork thrice before giving up. “I’m just saying, I don’t get it. Omega’s - at least the classy ones I’ve known - don’t tend to like that whole, like… giving a stranger the I’m gonna lick your slick-eye thing.”

A fork drops, clinking against porcelain.

Harry’s head snaps up, as well as the rest of the tables. “So, what, you’re calling me a slag now?” Louis says, eyes sharp like Harry hates it when they get.

Like Harry fears it more than anything. If there’s one person in the world who knows how to pick him apart and hurt him exactly where it’s worst it’s Louis, and, when Louis gets that sort of look in his eyes, even though he’s never been cruel before, Harry always fears a calling-out. Always fears getting confronted with just how pathetically obvious he is and how much Louis laughs at him, quietly, in his owm head, when Harry thinks he’s doing all right at acting like the functioning grown man that he isn’t.

“No,” Harry says hoarsely, “no, I’m not calling you a slag.”

“Good,” Louis snorts, “because that would really, really…” he laughs coldly, “ _really_ be ironic. Coming from you. Since—”

“Shut _up_!” Harry screams before he knows it, and Louis’ eyes blow wide, his mouth snapping shut, “shut the fuck up, you don’t talk to me like that, I’ve been—” his voice cracks, not a sound made at the entire rest of the table in the two seconds it takes for him to regain it and continue; “I’ve been nothing but fucking faithful to you, I’ve hardly looked at _anyone_ , I’ve fucking— you don’t know how many people— you have no _fucking_ idea how hard I fight for your sake every _single_ fucking day and then you think it’s funny to flirt with random fucki—”

“ _Harry_!” Harry was yelling loudly, but Niall’s voice is double that plus more, and he’s standing up at the end of the table, red in the face. “ _Language_! There are kids here, you fuckin’ cunt.”

Before he has a chance to come up with a response to that, the chair beside him is screeching loud against the floor and Louis is marching off out of the room.

It’s pretty quiet at the table after that.

 

*

 

He’s been sitting on his arse, slouched against Louis’ bedroom door for about ten minutes, intermittently knocking and calling his name and apologising and receiving silence in return, when the rest of the house start to leave the table. Nick comes walking down the hall, stopping for a second, but nodding and turning to his own room when Harry tells him _don’t ask, you know why_.

A bit after that Camille comes up, telling Harry she has to change before disappearing into her and Emmy’s room. Into a thick woolen high-collar sweater, Harry hopes, but doesn’t get.

Instead she does the exact worst thing she could’ve possibly done.

“D’you want me to have a word with him for you?” she’s asking, walking back out of the room. Harry doesn’t hear a word of it, though, not really, because she’s got a top halfway down her head when she comes out, bare tits bouncing with each step, nipples staring him down, mean and relentless. “Maybe he’d rather speak to someone else first,” she says, once she’s pulled her t-shirt down, but it’s too late.

The t-shirt isn’t much of an improvement, less low-cut, but double as see-through, and if the sheer fabric of it isn’t enough, Harry’s now got a fresh visual of her perfect tits burntinto his mind’s eye. She’s also not wearing trousers.

“Harry,” she says, snapping her fingers at him, “eyes. They’re up here.”

“Yeah,” he rasps, forcing his gaze up. Not that it matters much because she’s wearing red lipstick and it’s smudged and faded in the same way that it used to be when she’d sucked his cock, and he’s already half-hard now, he’s already half-forgotten why he’s sitting on his arse in the hallway.

“Louis!” Camille calls, stepping in to knock Louis’ bedroom door. “Darling, it’s Camille, you wanna talk for a minute?”

She’s stepped one foot in between both of Harry’s legs and her thong is too small, not covering enough when he looks right up between hers, and his lower gut feels tight, his neck is hot, burning, he’s sweating so much it must be visible, he—

Louis opens the bedroom door and he falls backwards into the room.

“What the fuck,” Louis says, looking down at him, “are you doing?”

“I’m sorry,” Harry manages.

Louis crosses his arms over his chest. Camille wanders off, from the sounds of it. Harry doesn’t make the mistake of looking in her direction again. “Get up, then. Fuckin’ idiot.”

Harry rolls onto his front, then pushes off the floor, stumbles into Louis’ room and closes the door behind himself. Louis’ gotten back in bed and is now lying on his back propped up against pillows, Harry’s sweater pushed up to his chest, blue boxers stretching over his inflated stomach. His jeans are on the floor. His thighs look like sex.

“I don’t care if you feel like I’ve been unfair to you,” Louis is saying, while rubbing his tight-skinned tummy, “you do not shout at me like that in front of everyone. You humiliated me. And yourself, for that matter. And stop staring at my stomach like that, I ate too many potatoes.”

Harry sits down by Louis’ soft, thick thighs and mutters some random shit, “you stole mine.”

“What?”

“You stole, uhm… my potatoes.”

“No, you, we— you took my, that… that green stringy shit. Trade. You said. What are we— why are we even talking about this? I’m honestly still a bit angry with you, Harry, and would you please, for the love of god, look me in the fucking eye?”

Harry pulls his gaze up from where the softest parts of Louis’ thighs press together. Louis’ got his arms crossed over his chest again, lips pressed thin, white like they get when they stretch around Harry’s cock.

He seems to be waiting for Harry to say something, but he can’t think, he can’t think at all, not about much else than fucking Louis where his thighs meet, so he sticks a hand into his own trackies and squeezes himself just to take the edge off.

He receives a slap over the arm. “What the fuck are you doing?!”

“I’m just—”

“What the fuck are you— what the— I’m trying to have a serious conversation with you and you start wanking, what the fuck is wrong with you?!” Louis screams.

Harry rips his hand out of his trackies, but it’s too late, Louis’ off the bed, pacing around in circles, clutching his own mouth and staring incredulously at the floor.

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t, I was just—”

“I put up with so, _so_ much extreme shit from you, but this is— we’ve got to be able to have a fucking _two-minute_ conversation without you pulling your fucking cock out, Harry,” he hisses, eyes wide, angry and scared at the same time.

He’s hurt and he’s frustrated and he’s confused and he’s right in being all of those things and Harry wants to say all the things he knows he could and would if it wasn’t for this fucking relentless voice drowning out everything else, screaming at the top of it’s lungues, _get him in bed, get him close, get him here, get inside him, anyway you can, get him to get you off, now now now, anything_.

“I’m sorry,” Harry grits out, “but I’m just really—” he swallows thickly, Louis’ eyes fixed on him, waiting for something sane to come out of his mouth, and then what comes out is; “could you just jerk me, quickly? Just till I come? Just, please?”

Louis’ jaw drops. His eyes go even wider than before,  brows so high they nearly touch his hairline, arms fall slack down his side. He stumbles a step or two backward. “You—”

“Just, like— just, please, Lou, just please, we can— we can talk all you want after, I’m so sorry,” his voice cracks and he’s jerking himself now, and Louis’ just staring at him, flabbergasted, and he can’t stop begging, “please, I’ll be so quick, just touch me a bit, just— just, _ah_ , just—” his head lolls back as it starts to get better, but it’s not enough, never enough, “you’re so fucking hot, please just— just sit on it, Lou, just come here and sit, I’ll come, we’ll, _ungh_ , we’ll, please, _ah_ —”

Louis licks over his lips, slowly, eyes dragging up and down Harry as he sits there, jerking himself and babbling, pleading, pathetic. Then he shakes his head, face a terrible grimace, like he would cry, but can’t be bothered, and he turns around and leaves with a slam of the door.

And then Harry pulls his phone out and pulls himself off to a disgusting video. And then comes, all over his best shirt, alone in Louis’ bedroom, teeth set so deep in his lip it’s started to bleed, tears staining his cheeks, sobs coming out in pathetic little hiccups. And they don’t stop, just keep coming, angry, angry, hopeless tears, soaking the pillow when he screams into it, blurring his vision when he throws it across the room, more every time he remembers that this isn’t the first time he’s been here and he’s long since now lost hope that it’ll ever be the last.


	11. Chapter 11

He’s been sitting in the loo for about five minutes, chewing his nails down till his fingertips are too sore to touch, knees bopping up and down, when he decides to get up and go back to Harry. This is too ridiculous. They’re not fifteen anymore.

In his room, there’s no Harry, but there is a pillow, tossed callously onto the floor, and, when he looks a bit closer, a fucking cum-drip on his bedsheet.

“Harry!”

He comes storming out of the room just as Niall comes walking down the hall. Niall takes one look at him, then spins around and flees before becoming collateral damage.

“Harry!” Louis knocks Harry’s door once, lightly, just to be able to say that he did if need be, then punches the handle and kicks it in. “You are the single _nastiest_ piece of shit I’ve ever had the displeasure of knowing in my entire fucking life!”

Harry’s sat on his bed, back naked and hunched and facing Louis. He’s still got his trackies on and he doesn’t move when Louis barges in. “Thanks,” he mutters.

Leaning against the jamb, Louis takes a second to see if Harry’s going to turn for him, then crosses his arms over his chest when he doesn’t, and adds on; “you’ve smudged cum on my sheet. I’d _just_ changed that sheet.” He snorts a dry laugh. “Because you’d got cum on the other one too, funnily enough.”

“Fine, just bring it in here, I’ll have it clean by the morning,” Harry mutters, so lowly that Louis has to take a second to properly comprehend.

“That’s not the fucking point,” he says when he does, “I don’t give a fuck about the fucking sheet.” 

Harry’s back doesn’t twitch. “Then why—”

“The fucking _point_ , Harry,” Louis hisses, blood heating more every second Harry doesn’t turn and look him in the eye, “is that we were having a fucking row and instead of running after me or fucking talking to me in the first place, you decided to have a fucking wank and drip off on my fucking sheet.” He steps into the room, closing the door as he leans back against it, waiting for Harry to react. He doesn’t. “Harry. Harry. Can’t you see how fucked up that is? _Harry_!”

“I get it!” Harry hisses. “I get it, I’m fucking disgusting and I have no self control and I’m a terrible human being, I get it. Anything else you wanna add?”

Louis chews on the side of his mouth, watching the tense lines of Harry’s back, the knots of his spine as he curls in on himself even further, head ducking down between his shoulders. “Well,” Louis sighs, “if you’d turn around and look at me we could talk like adults.”

“Not right now, Louis.”

Louis’ jaw slackens. “Are you serious? _You’re_ giving _me_ the silent treatment? After— after all this, _you’re_ giving _me_ the— fuckin’ hell,” he scrubs a hand over his mouth, just trying to fathom it, “do you have _any_ idea how much I put up with without saying anything? How many times I’ve wanted to just cuddle or talk, fucking— fucking hang out and _talk_ , like we used to, and I’ve given you a blowjob instead because you kept begging and beg—”

“Stop, just. Please stop.”

Louis swallows, throat tight, and Harry buries his face in his hands.

“It’s true, though,” Louis begins again, slowly, because they can’t keep pretending this is normal, it isn’t getting any better, it isn’t showing any signs of calming down like Louis’d hoped it would by itself, “we can’t even have a two-minute conversation anymore, can we? We— it used to be so different, with us. We used to talk about everything and now I feel like—” he stops when he feels his voice about to break, swallows and focuses his gaze on a spot on the wall above Harry.

But Harry’s finally lifted his head a bit. “What? Come on,” he’s saying, voice flat, “what were you gonna say? Just say it.”

“I don’t—”

“Louis, just fucking say it, I—”

“I feel like I’ve lost my best friend.”

He regrets the second Harry’s head drops down between his shoulders, a sharp puff of air falling from his lips.

“Harry, I—”

“It’s okay, you’re right, I’ve— I’ve fucked it up, I’ve— it’s not your fault, you’re right, it’s done, it’s fucked, I’ve fucked it all up again, it’s—” his voice is hoarse, thin like he could lose it any second.

And Louis can’t keep staring at his fucking back.

“Christ, sorry, I didn’t mean that,” he lies. “Shit, I didn’t mean to upset you like that.”

He starts to move closer, but soon as his foot hits the floor, Harry’s head flies back up. “I think it’s better if you don’t, uhm—” he exclaims, “just don’t, right now, okay?”

“No, Haz, I wanna hug you.”

Harry turns a bit, but drops his face into his hand quick enough that Louis doesn’t get a proper look at it. He’s rubbing at his temples, fisting the sheet with his other hand. “Please go,” he half-whispers, “please just— this doesn’t work, obviously, I’ve fucked it up, I should’ve known and I just— I just think you should go.”

Louis bites his lip. “I don’t want to.”

“Well, you have to,” Harry hisses, head snapping up. His eyes are wet, red and puffy, still running now, and Louis sucks in a sharp breath at the sight. “Please go, I can’t, I— we’re not even friends anymore, innit? So get out.”

“No, I didn’t mean that shit, I—”

“I’m just some fucking arsehole who uses you for sex, innit, so you can leave now.”

“Harry—”

“Fuck _off_ , I said!” Harry shouts, jarringly loud, and Louis jumps back, gasping, “what is it you don’t understand, fuck _off_ , I wanna be alone, I don’t want this, fuck off!”

Louis takes in a shaky breath, swallowing at what’s crawled up and settled thickly in his throat before croaking; “you said you were in love with me. Just before dinner, you said—”

“Yeah, well, I say a lot of shit when I’m trying to get laid.”

Louis stills. He thinks it may be his heart that’s sitting in his throat because he can’t feel it beating in his chest at all. “You mean that? You don’t—”

“ _I_ don’t even trust the shit I say,” Harry hisses, eyes wide, wild, “please, Louis. Just leave. For fuck’s sake, how many times do I have to—”

“No, okay,” Louis says, as the last thing he’s able to before his voice disappears on him and he turns, slamming the door behind himself. Harry doesn’t come to try and apologise at any point in the entire night. Louis should know; he doesn’t sleep at all during.

 

*

 

Around six am Saturday morning, he does manage to find a restless sort of sleep. He wakes far past noon and doesn’t feel like leaving bed at all. The sun’s shining in brightly through where he forgot to pull the curtains and there’s chat and children’s laughter coming from down in the backyard and Louis’ bladder’s threatening to burst on him, so he does get up in the end.

On his way back down the hall, he bumps into Camille.

“Hey,” she says, “you all right? Got quite bad last night, huh?”

Louis shrugs a shoulder, not really meeting her gaze. She’s got on an oversized white tank-top which has slid aside enough to show her left nipple. Louis reaches in and fixes it for her. “You should really invest in some better fitting tops. People could get quite distracted.”

“People, as in, your boyfriend?”

She’s grinning when he looks up at her, loving, harmless, but his stomach twists up worse than it already was and he lowers his gaze again. “Him and the rest of us,” he mutters, “could really be quite distracting, what with the nipples all out and everything.”

She huffs. “You guys show your nipples all the time - I say free them, women as well as men. If anyone’s got a problem with my nipples being out, then it’s probably them who have issues and not me.”

“Hm.”

 

*

 

Down in the kitchen, Kate and Niall are cooking up a stirfry together, radio on high, swinging each other around and laughing and slapping bums, and Louis leaves that room quite quickly. In the garden, Ziam and the kids are kicking the ball around, one second laughing so hard they go red in the face, the next crowding around Liam because the ball grazed his pinky and he’s curled up in a ball in the middle of the field, sobbing. Louis goes back inside.

Harry’s sitting in the common room.

He’s got his duvet wrapped around him, torso naked, and he’s curled up in the corner of the couch, feet sticking out. The telly’s on, but he’s staring at the coffee-table, eyes glassy, red and puffy like the lips he wont stop picking at.

“Hey,” Louis mutters, and Harry’s head snaps up.

He swallows, adam’s apple bopping. “Hey,” he says on half a voice.

“Can I come sit, or—”

“Oh, I— yeah, course, come and,” he presses himself impossibly deeper into the corner of the couch, “sit. Yeah.”

Louis nods, taking a seat straight across from him. Harry begins to pick at his duvet instead of his lips, which _is_ an improvement, but he’s trained his gaze on his hands, won’t look up at all.

Louis pulls his knees up under his chin. “I’m sorry for—”

“Don’t apologise,” Harry says with a sharp shake of the head, “just. Don’t do that.”

“Okay.”

“I’m the one who’s sorry. I should’ve never… I should’ve known I couldn’t. That it wouldn’t be— that I’d just fuck it all up, I always do, I always fuck it up no matter how hard I try, I—” his voice disappears, from one word to the next and his face breaks into a terrible, terrible grimace, and he buries into his hand with a sob that smashes Louis’ heart into a million pieces.

“Oh, darling.”

Louis shifts closer, reaching for his hands, but Harry pulls them back before he gets to touch, lifting his head and shaking it.

“No, uhm,” he wipes his sniffly nose with the back of his hand, blinking the dampness out of his eyes, “no, I don’t think that’ll help it, I’m just. You touching me, it just— it just really won’t help anything.”

“Okay.” Louis swallows, slowly leaning back again, “okay, I won’t touch you.”

Harry nods, quick and manic. “I really love you. I really, honestly do, Lou, you know that. And I’m really sorry for what I said yesterday, I was upset.”

“Me too. I’m sorry too, I said some nasty shit.”

“But I think that— I’ve always thought this, but I guess living together just changed things, it made it so hard for me not to give in— but I think that it’s best if you and I aren’t anything more. Than friends.”

Louis blinks. “What?” he breathes.

“You said it yourself, Lou, you feel like you’ve lost your best friend, and I—” he shakes his head at himself, staring out at something just left of Louis’ shoulder, “I knew, I fucking _knew_ , this would happen if I ever— if we ever— but that’s… yeah. Fuck, I understand if you already feel like I’ve ruined everything and I can’t have any part of you now and that would break my heart, but… I get it. I’ve fucked up so badly. I should’ve never moved in here to start with.”

“Harry,” Louis says, voice shaking, “you can’t— what’s changed since yesterday? We had _one_ fight, we had _one_ fight after you’d said you were _in love_ with me, you told me, you said, you can’t just—” _you can’t just take it back now, not now, not after all these years, not when I’ve finally gotten it_ , “you can’t just go back and forth like this, can’t we just be— can’t we just be normal, I don’t— why s’it got to be so difficult, it doesn’t have to be so difficult, it’s us doing something wrong here, maybe it’s me, maybe I’m just—”  

“No, we can’t,” he whispers, smiling bitterly, “we can’t just be normal because I’m not capable of having a normal relationship. Trust me, I’ve tried,” he sighs, “I know this sounds insane, considering how I’ve been with you, but I have never, ever, _ever_ tried as hard with anyone else as I have with you. And what you got— what’s made you feel so used and hurt and frustrated - with me,” he says, “that’s the best you’re _ever_ gonna get. From me. That’s the best I can _possibly_ ever be. Trust me. I’ve been me my entire life.”  

“No, what are you talking about? We can work through this, it’s a bump in the road, I love you,” Louis exclaims, a wild burst of panic prompting him to leap forward and plaster his own body over Harry’s, linking his arms around his neck, “I love you, please.”

Harry’s body is stiff in his arms, his breathing ragged, and Louis kisses his sweet cried-out face, his jaw and his cheek and his undereye and his nose and his mouth and his mouth and his mouth again and—

Harry shoves him off. “No,” he says, pushing off the couch, “no, I, you smell so— I just can’t, I can’t do it. _Fuck_.” He buries his face in his hands, taking in a deep breath breath and then lifting his head again, ripping the hands through his hair. “I’m so sorry,” he says, “I’m so, so, so sorry, I’ll move out if you want, I’ll do anything for you, but I just— I just can’t be with you. Not like this. I can’t do it. It won’t work.”

He looks at Louis, just for one terrible endless tiny second, and then he walks away. And just like that, Louis’ back to where he was before they started. Except now he knows what it felt like to have him.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CHAPTER WARNING: Graphic sex scene containing violent and very degrading sex acts. (consensual)

The rest of Saturday, Louis spends downstairs, hanging around whoever wants to keep him company without asking any questions. He doesn’t see Harry again for several hours, assumes that he’s hiding in his room, hopes that he’s regretting, that he’s sobering up from his temporary insanity, and tries not to let his entire face fall down into his plate when Niall announces at dinner _by the way, Harry left an hour ago, he’s not eating in tonight_.

Louis doesn’t say anything. Louis doesn’t text Harry or tell Emmy when they’re doing the dishes together and she asks if he’s all right, partly because he’s fighting tears, partly because he isn’t sure if this is serious or not. Just last night, Harry was _so in love with you_ , and Louis can’t bring himself to believe that those kinds of feelings could’ve possibly switched from one day to the next. Just doesn’t want to, maybe.

But Harry stays gone all of Sunday and Louis stays home, torturing himself about who he’s with and what he’s doing with them.

Monday morning, Harry walks into the diningroom, sees Louis with all the kids, then turns around and walks right out again. At dinner he sits straight across from Louis because he arrives late to the table and is forced to, but doesn’t look at him once. Louis gets up in the middle of it, feigning a headache to go and soak his pillow and fall asleep alone.

Tuesday, Emmy forces him to tell her what’s wrong, then consoles him with _he’ll come around_ ’s and _there’s got to be a reasonable explanation, maybe he’s just scared by the intensity of his own feeling_ ’s and _he doesn’t deserve you anyway_ ’s, and a load of other bullshit which, combined with her soft back-strokes and strong dedication, does admittedly help a little bit.

It’s Thursday evening that Louis realises it’s seriously over.

He walks into the loo after having just watched a stupid B-movie on his iPad and cried his eyes out, - perhaps only partially due to what was happening on the screen - meaning to have a long warm shower before bed so that he doesn’t risk lying awake with his own head for hours.

And finds Harry just brushing his teeth.

“Oh. Sorry, the door was open, I thought—”

Harry spins around immediately at the sound of Louis’ sob-broken voice, his nostrils flaring out, brows snapping together. His toothbrush points directly at Louis, a bit of toothpaste dripping down his chin, and he looks a bit ridiculous in heart-patterned boxers and his toenails painted glittery purple by the twins, Louis presumes, and all Louis wants is to have him close again. All the time.

There’s a lump in his throat that’s been sitting there since Saturday, the last time he and Harry spoke more than two words to one another, the last time he and Harry looked one another in the eye at all, and he feels it the most right now, hard, growing, impossible to swallow down.

He’s touched Harry every way possible and Harry’s had him how he feels the most vulnerable, and now he isn’t even allowed to erase those two feet between them and give him a hug.

“I was just gonna shower, but I’ll, eh— I’ll go back and wait till you’re done or—”

“‘ve you been crying?” Harry asks and, when Louis looks up, he’s put the toothbrush down and his face is so miserable, so absolutely etched in guilt and worry, that Louis loses any bit of a front he had in him.

He bites into his lip, dropping his chin as his eyes warm with tears.

Harry emits a noise something akin to that of a man who’s just been stabbed through the chest, but still doesn’t come any closer. Louis bores the heels of his hands into the hollows of his closed eyes and swallows twice before giving up on the lump, giving up on any sort of pride or self-respect and whimpering; “I just really need a hug from you, Haz.”

“I, uhm,” Harry says, instead of just coming close, wrapping his arms around Louis and making it feel a little bit better, making it hurt a little bit less, even if it’s stupid, even if it’ll make it hurt twice as bad when he stops. “I don’t think—”

“Please,” Louis whispers, because he’s too far gone to give a shit about coming off like the most pathetic fucking fool on the planet, “please, I don’t want— just a hug, nothing more, just please—”

There’s a whiny noise that sounds like it’s been ripped right out of Harry’s throat, more wounded animal than anything, but he still doesn’t move any closer. When Louis looks up at him, his eyes are wet, his teeth deep in his bottom lip, knuckles white where his hands cling to the edge of the sink-counter he’s still leaned back against.

“Please,” Louis breathes.

“I want to,” Harry whimpers, “I really want to, but I— I can’t control it when I’m close to you, I can’t, I don’t want to use you, I don’t want to make you hurt more later on, I just—”

He closes his eyes, taking in a shaky breath, and Louis takes pathetic advantage and starts to tug at the front of his hoodie.

When Harry opens his eyes again, two fat tears roll down either of his cheeks, but his gaze is changed, hard and determined. “I’m going to get Emmy or Niall or someone,” he says, “I can’t be the one who holds you right now. I just— I can’t do that.”

And Louis wants to scream, wants to grab him and force him close, bite him and kiss him and feel him again, wants to shout _why the fuck now, why now of all times, have you decided to have a slither of self-control, now, when I need you to be weak the most_?, but he does none of it because the lump in his throat’s grown too big and his vision’s all blurred and Harry’s already walking off, away from him again.

 

*

 

Thursday is miserable. Harry doesn’t come home for dinner and Louis doesn’t manage not to spend all evening wondering who he’s balls deep in and from which angle and how good it is and if it’s as good as with Louis and if he even thinks of Louis, before or after or during or ever, anymore.

Friday, he manages not to cry at all, not even in the evening, when the kids are all down and the two or three cheap bottles of wine someone fetched are all empty, and when Nick simulates a blowjob on one of Zayn’s dildos and Harry goes red in the face and leaves without a word and Louis knows exactly what he’s going off to do.

Friday, he manages not to cry at all, until he’s nicked a random book from Niall and Kate’s shelf because he forgot to charge his iPad and his laptop is shit and he doesn’t want to go to bed before he’s deathly exhausted enough to fall right asleep, and he stumbles upon the quote; _you like someone who can’t like you back because unrequited love can be survived in a way that once-requited love cannot_ and it’s just so fucking perfect he wants to kill himself.

 

*

 

Saturday, Louis stays in his room most of the time. He finishes his book, then watches Netflix, then gets dragged down by Niall for dinner, and then again later on, when all the kids are down and everyone’s gathered outside in the patio-sofas with drink and crisps and cosy garden-lights.

Harry isn’t there and Louis rolls himself up in a soft cream blanket and tucks into the corner of the sofa with a massive glass of wine and a Niall that keeps refilling it soon as it’s so much as half-empty.

“Hey, guys!” he yells to the crowd, consisting of all housemates except Harry and Emmy, who goes to bed at eight pm, latest, and pukes at the smell of alcohol these days. “S’it all right if a couple of my colleagues pop by? They’re cool guys.”

“Yaaay!” Camille howls, lifting her oversized wine-glass so the contents splash over her hand, “are they fit?”

“How should I know, I can’t tell that sort of thing.”

“They’re fit,” Kate says, grinning when Niall shoots her a faux-offended look, “I met them at the function-thingy.”

“Yeah, they’re fucking hot,” Niall admits.

“Sure, invite them, be cool to meet them, Niall,” Liam says, and Zayn shoots him a genuinely-offended look, and Liam spends a while muttering quiet explanations and assuring him he’s the most beautiful creature in the world and Liam never wants anyone else, ever.

Louis doesn’t say anything, really, doesn’t care all that much, just puts his glass down again and watches Niall refill automatically.

The colleagues, Tim, Tom and Teddy, are three men around their late thirties, all of them alphas, all of them fit. Camille immediately makes room for the tall, dark one and keeps his attention pinned for the rest of the evening, and the longhaired ginger sits down somewhere around Nick, while the last alpha hurries over to Louis after Zayn’s shot him dagger-eyes for trying to sit by Liam.

“Tim,” he says, unprompted, although he’s just been introduced to the whole crowd, and reaches a hand out for Louis.

He has nice blue eyes and an easy smile and Louis’ intoxicated enough to talk to anyone anyway, nice blue eyes or not, so he shakes Tim’s hand and starts chatting shit. Tim is twenty-nine, likes football all right and once knew a guy from Donny that Louis kind of knew a little bit, but not really, so they have loads in common.

Louis’ on his something hundredth glass of wine when, in the corner of his eyesight, he sees Harry walk out and join.

He’s in the same black jeans and white t-shirt as he was the two times Louis accidentally and very briefly passed him earlier in the day. His hair is free, fresh-washed and bouncy, and his mouth is the reddest it ever gets, and all the guys notice him soon as he walks in, as people do when someone who looks like Harry walks in.

Harry looks at Louis, then Tim, then turns and sits by Liam, filling a wine-glass to the brim.

“So, you said you were a nanny?” Tim says, trying to win back Louis’ attention.

“Yeah,” Louis exclaims, forcing his gaze back on Tim’s nice blue eyes, “yeah, I take care of all the kids here. You know, get them up and fed in the morning, tire them out while everyone’s at work, clean up after them, that sort of thing. It’s a decent living and I love the kids, so, yeah. It’s great.”

“That does sound great.”

“Yeah,” Louis says, willpower failing him as he glances over at Harry again, just for a split-second. Harry’s leaned back deeply into the couch, legs crossed, first glass of wine already replaced by another full one, from the looks of things. He’s staring directly at Louis when Louis looks over, so Louis quickly looks back to Tim. “Yeah, it’s ace, I’ve got a playroom downstairs and everything.”

“A playroom?” Tim’s brows raise, eyes brightening, “what, like— Fifty Shades kind of—”

“Oh, no! No. No no no, god, Jesus Christ,” Louis exclaims, barking a laugh, “no, just a regular old… playroom. For the kids.”

“Oh,” Tim laughs, cheeks reddening a bit, “fuck, right, of course. Pardon my dirty mind, I had a few pints before I got here.”

“No apologies, I’ve had like, twelve glasses of wine.”

Tim laughs, but Louis isn’t even sure whether he’s lying at this point.

“It’s actually a really cool room,” Louis slurs on, “the playroom. It’s got a little art station and a cosy corner and it’s got this massive - well, sort of massive - pirate ship in the middle.”

“Wow, that’s so cool.”

“Yeah, it’s got a plank and a stripper’s pole and everything.”

Tim laughs. “It’s got a stripper’s pole?”

“Yeah. Well, no, it’s actually just a slide, which is a pole, but I’m sure it’s made by the same company anyway.”

“Right,” Tim chuckles, head tilted, eyes fond, “right, that makes better sense.”

“Yeah, it does, doesn’t it?”

Tim licks over his teeth as they fall silent for a moment, fuzzy eyes locked. “You wanna show me it?” he asks, voice lower, “the pirate ship?”

“Ehm,” Louis glances down into his half-empty wine-glass, then over at Harry, who’s still staring at him, then back at Tim, who’s nice and easy to talk to and interested in his job and his pirate ship and his thigh, judging by where his hand’s been sitting for the past five minutes. “Yeah,” Louis says, downing the last of his wine in one go and getting up, “come on, then, let’s go.”

They make it down into the playroom, miraculously without getting stabbed to death by Harry’s dagger-eyes on their way, and Louis dangles off the pole-slide while Tim checks the pirate ship out, absolutely awed.

“Wow, you’ve even got a box of eye-patches and shit down here,” he says from within it.

“What kind of pirate ship would it be if we didn’t?”

“That’s true. That _is_ true.” Tim comes stumbling out of the ship, eye-patch on. “Is this a good look? Be honest.”

Which it isn’t, if for no other reason than just that Tim’s eyes are his greatest assets, but Louis nods, grinning at him as he rids the patch and comes closer. “Pretty sexy,” he says, “sexy pirate, s’all right, it’s…”

“Mhm,” Tim hums fondly, shutting him up with his mouth.

There’s one hand gently holding the side of Louis’ face, the other rested on his hip, thumb stroking circles, and Tom smells and tastes like he always brushes his teeth after snacking and pops a mint when he’s had a pint, kisses like he cares more about Louis’ comfort than immediately getting his own.

He kisses nothing like Harry.

After a bit, Tim tries his luck, tonguing in a bit deeper, and Louis lets him, whereafter Tim’s hands find their way down to his arse. Tim gets happy, hungry, pulls on Louis’ arse to get his crotch closer, pulls back from the kiss to lick and nip at his neck.

“You’ve got such a great arse, fuck,” he’s rumbling against Louis’ skin, slipping a hand down into the back of his pants to grab him better, fingers dangerously close to where Louis’ getting just a little wet, just by default. He pulls back, panting a little. “I’ve got a condom in my wallet.”

“Oh. I don’t, eh— I don’t do that, really. With people I’ve just met.”

Tim’s face falls. “Oh,” he says, then forces it back into smiley folds, “of course, yeah. I get that, obviously, I don’t— I don’t know, I just… got a bit too confident there, sorry.”

“No, it’s all right, I just— yeah. Sorry, I led you on.”

“No,” Tim exclaims, too nice for his own good, “no no, you didn’t, you really didn’t, you were just showing me this awesome pirate ship and I took it as an invitation to— I should be grateful, I got to wear an eye-patch. How many people get to wear an eye-patch, really, when they’re just visiting friends for drinks?”

“Right,” Louis chuckles.

Tim drops his face into a hand, rubbing it over his eyes. “Okay, I’ve made this really awkward now,” he says, smiling apologetically when he looks up again, “basically, you’re just, like… _insanely_ hot and I— got a bit too happy and… yeah, should we just go back up to the others?”

“Ehm,” Louis croaks at the thought of going back up to the rest now. Tim’s cheeks are red and there’s a bit of a bulge in his jeans and Louis feels like Tim may have made a bit of an embarrassing bruise on the side of his throat, and it’s just all so pathetically obvious and Harry’s probably still up there. Waiting to stare Louis down till he feels like the smallest little person in the world.

“What?”

“I didn’t say we couldn’t do _anything_ ,” Louis says, and Tim’s brows raise, “we can do a lot of things aside from _that_.”

The crooks of Tim’s mouth tug upwards and he comes closer again. “Yeah?” he says, one hand settling on Louis’ hip again, “like what, for example?”

Louis shrugs a shoulder, playing his own utter lack of creativityoff as mysterious playfulness, “I’m sure we could figure something out.”

“Mhm?” Tim’s in the crook of his neck again, breath hot, lips wet, “you smell so good.”

“You too,” Louis says, and it isn’t untrue. He smells good. Like alpha, like just the right amount of cologne and citrus shampoo and flower-scented fabric-softener, like someone who cares enough to make an effort for moments like these. He smells the best a one-night-stand could possibly wish for, but he smells nothing like Harry. “Smell really alpha,” Louis tells him, just trying to get out of his own head.

Harry doesn’t want him anymore. This guy wants him. This guy is nice and fit and thinks he’s ‘insanely hot’ and wants him, now.

“Yeah?” Tim licks Louis up the side of the neck, his hand tightening where it’s latched onto his jaw, “you like a strong alpha?”

“Who doesn’t like a-hmpf…” Louis begins, shut up when Tim presses his thumb into his mouth and past his teeth.

He sucks on it a bit when Tim pulls back just enough to watch, and knows his next words before he says them; “think you can manage something bigger?”

He drops to his knees.

Tim’s meticulousabout hygiene in the downstairs region too, which is nice, and he rests a hand on the back of Louis’ head after about a minute, but doesn’t try and steer him in the slightest. It’s all very nice, very vanilla, but Louis feels a bit like an automated machine, a bit out of his body, like he’s watching himself from the sideline, sucking a strangers cock. Tim is great about moaning and praising him all throughout, making sure Louis doesn’t miss how incredibly well he’s doing, though, so even if it feels less like sex and more like polite servicing to Louis, he doesn’t mind it all that much.

It takes Tim about twenty-five minutes to come and yet, despite having been vocal throughout the entire blowjob, he doesn’t warn Louis at all. Louis just manages to close the wrong throat and avoid an embarrassing crying and coughing-fit.

He swallows because he’s got nowhere to spit, then plops down on his bum, leaning back against the pole-slide. “Got any breath mints?”

Tim barks a laugh. “Yeah, actually,” he says, fetching a crumbled-up pack of Polo’s from his back-pocket, “here. Just take ‘em all if you want, it’s the least I could give you after what you just gave me.”

“Wow, that doesn’t make me feel like a prostitute at all,” Louis rasps, popping all four last Polo’s into his mouth at once.

“Oh. No, sorry, I didn’t meant it like that, I just—”

“I know,” Louis says, remembering that he’s just sucked off a stranger and not someone who knows him well enough to tell apart passive-aggressive and dryly sarcastic, “I know, I was just joking.”

“Right.” Tim licks over his lips, looking him up and down. “Are you hard at all? I’d love to return the favour or do something else for you, but you don’t smell all that wet.”

No. He’s hardly wet enough for finger-penetration, hardly hard enough to call it a half-chub and, for whatever insane (Harry-related) reason, he’s hardly in the mood to have the favour returned. “I’m all right,” he says, “had a bit too much wine, so.”

“Right.” Tim nods. “Right, okay. Well.” He sticks his thumbs into his pockets, tilts onto the balls of his feet and back again, clicking his tongue. “Thanks anyway, Louis. This was really nice.”

“I should hope so, my jaws on fucking fire.”

“Oh. Shit, I’m sorry, I—”

“ _Kiiidding_ , Tim, I was kidding.”

“Right. Right, course.” Tim chuckles awkwardly. “So, anyway, could I have your number? I’d love to take you out sometime.”

“Oh. I—”

They’re interrupted by the door flying open at the top of the staircase. “Helloo?”

Louis drops the bridge of his nose down between two fingers and squeezes.

“Yeah, mate, we’re down here,” Tim calls out, quickly zipping up his trousers, “what’s up?”

Harry comes down slowly, heavy thumps on every single step, and doesn’t answer Tim until he’s standing on the carpet, one hand rested ever so nonchalantly on the bottom of the railing, the other half-tucked in the pocket of his jeans. His eyes are dark and fuzzy, lips stained burgundy, brows set in a deep, angry frown. He glances at Louis, still sitting on the floor, leaned back against the slide, then at Tim, top button of his jeans still open.

“ _Mate_ ,” he says, spitting the word like he’s repulsed by it, “your friends are leaving. Said if you want a lift home you’ve gotta come now.”

“Oh.”

Tim glances back at Louis, then Harry, and then Harry raises his brows at him and hisses “well,  _go_ , then!” and Tim stumbles forward.

“Yeah, I— well, bye then,” he says, inching past Harry who doesn’t move for him at all. “Bye, Louis.”

“Bye, bye,” Harry says, smile as wide as his eyes are cold, “fuck off now, you’ll lose them.”

Tim gives a scared chuckle and hurries up the stairs. “Bye bye!”

“Good _bye_!” Harry shouts, eyes on the carpet now. He doesn’t drop the fake smile until Tim’s closed the door behind himself.

And then they’re alone.

Louis pulls his legs up and closes his arms around them, resting his chin on his knee. His lips still feel a bit numb, his jaw a bit achey, tongue a bit cummy, but it’s nothing compared to his chest right now, as it tugs together and tightens, waiting for Harry say something, do something, anything. Knowing Harry must think he’s fucking disgusting.

“I, uhm,” Harry drawls, head still a bit bowed, two fingers rubbing at his eye, “I don’t quite understand why you’d suck this guy off, Louis, I… I’ve had a bit to drink so maybe I’m being fucking inappropriate, but, like… what the fuck?”

He looks up, eyes wide, like he’s hoping Louis’ going to tell him he didn’t do it, that he didn’t just suck a stranger off in the room Harry created for him, hardly one full week after they broke up. Louis just bites into his lip, mouth drooping downward against his will.

Harry lets go of a long sigh, dropping his head and dragging a hand through his hair. “Fuck,” he says, “fuck, I…” he spins around, slamming his hand into the railing, “fuck!”

He bends over the railing, burying his face in his arms.

“Harry—” Louis says on hardly any voice, “I don’t want him, I don’t, I still want you. I miss you, I miss you every day, I miss you so much, all I think about—” he swallows hard, “I lie awake every night, hoping you’ll come in and hold me again, Harry, I can’t stand it.”

He’s on all fours before he realises what he’s doing, and then he’s crawling toward Harry. Harry hears it, or smells it, maybe, and whirls around. He tells Louis to stop, not to come any closer, but his nostrils are twitching, his eyes are eating Louis up like Louis’ missed it so much.

“Louis—”

Louis gets close enough to wrap himself around one of Harry’s legs, presses his face into his thigh and clings to him like a child. Just that, just feeling part of him, it’s enough to make Louis never want to let go again. He’ll settle for this, then, he’ll just sit wrapped around Harry’s leg like a two-year-old or a koala, he’ll just stay here and— fuck, he’s had too much to drink. Or maybe Harry just smells so good close that he’s gone a bit insane from it.

“Louis, please,” Harry’s saying, puffing half-heartedly at his head and trying to peel his unrelenting arms off, “Louis, I’m a bit drunk too, won’t you please stop before I— I can’t control myself, Lou, please—”

But Louis can’t either right now. He lifts up a little, nuzzles his face around until he finds Harry’s crotch and presses in where he’s already bulging, and Harry’s hand flies down into his hair, fisting it up. He pushes Louis’ face closer first, then tries to yank it back, but Louis fights him, pushes closer again, and he groans loudly.

“ _Louis_ ,” he says, and he’d be shouting if his voice hadn’t gone far too hoarse, “babe, I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I, ah, _ah_ , fuck.”

His hand clenches up harder around the fistful of Louis’ hair he’s latched onto, and he pushes Louis into his bulge, harder, harder, until Louis can’t breathe at all and has to fight it, slap his thighs to get him to stop. Soon as he does, Louis looks up at him, his hard-set jaw and his darkened eyes, and grabs him by the bottom of his t-shirt and tugs him down.

Harry stumbles onto his knees, then growls and jumps Louis, pinning him right down. He bites into Louis’ shoulder and Louis whines, fisting up the back of his t-shirt and locking his legs around his waist. Harry’s cock feels the hardest Louis’ ever had it, feels like it’s about to burst out of his jeans where it lays pressed just by Louis’ hipbone.

“Get your, _ah_ — get your cock out.”

“Fucking whore,” Harry growls, and Louis stills, even as his dick jerks at it. “Sorry,” Harry slurs out, but doesn’t slow the grind of his hips, “fuck, you’re such a fucking— fuck, you’re—” he shuts himself up, latching onto Louis’ collarbone to suck a deep bruise instead.

His cock grinds up against Louis’, and his entire weight’s on Louis, strong and heavy enough that Louis couldn’t move unless Harry allowed him to, and Louis’ so turned on he feels dizzy from it.

“Harry, get your—”

Harry stuffs four big fingers into his mouth at once, curling tight around lower teeth, his thumb digging up under Louis’ jaw. “Stop,” he growls, ruffling Louis’ head around a little, “stop talking, you fucking— _ungh_.”

“Ghrgh…”

Harry sighs exasperatedly, loudly so, like he’s actually genuinely irritated, but pulls his fingers from Louis’ mouth, wipes them off on his cheek, and pulls back to look down at him, brows arched. “What?”

“What am I?” Louis pants, trying to gain some sort of connection, but Harry’s eyes are too dark, unfamiliar again, “you keep almost saying, but then you— you keep holding back on me. Don’t,” Louis breathes, reaching up and cupping the side of Harry’s face, “you can say anything, have anything, do anything, Haz, you—”

Harry takes his wrist and pins it to the carpet beside his head. “Okay,” he says, thumb tapping where Louis’ pulse is pounding through his skin, “okay.”

“What am I?”

A long strand of hair falls down over Harry’s eyes and he lets go of Louis’ wrist in favour of pushing it back. Louis reaches up and cups his face again, stroking a thumb over the soft pale skin of his cheekbone.

“You’re a whore,” Harry tells him then, lowly, like he’s still trying to fight it.

Louis swallows, holding his gaze. “Am I?”

“Yeah,” Harry breathes, gaze hardening, “yeah, you’re a whore.” His cock twitches against Louis’ as the words leave his wet red lips, and he says it again, “you’re a fucking whore,” pinning Louis’ wrist down once more, harder this time. “You’re a pathetic fucking whore.”

“Harry, get your—”

“Stop talking,” Harry hisses, and everything in face says he’s serious, “just— shut the fuck up and turn over.” Louis chuckles, a little. “I said—” Harry sighs exasperatedly, grabbing him roughly and flipping him over.

He covers Louis in all his weight immediately, pinning him down again, and Louis spits a bit of carpet out his mouth and turns his head enough to breathe. Harry licks him right up the side of his face, then rests against him, mouth on his ear.

“I’m so wet,” Louis says, “you can just—”

“I know you’re wet, I can fucking _smell_ you.” Harry starts to yank at his jeans and Louis lifts his hips enough that they slip down under the curve of his arse. “Could fucking smell you before I walked down here,” he pulls his own dick out, pressing up between Louis’ arsecheeks, “cause you were sucking some random guy off, you’ve no standards at all, you probably didn’t even want it, you just did what he said cause he told you to, you’re fucking disgusting.”

“Just fuck me,” Louis whimpers, “please.”

Harry bites at his ear, humping down without humping in yet, “why would I want to?”

“Cause you—” Four fingers stuffed directly into his mouth shut him up once more.

“Why would I wanna fuck some fucking whore who lets everyone have it? I don’t know where you’ve been, I don’t know what you’ve got, everyone’s used you.”

Louis tries spitting his fingers out to argue him on his insane claims or maybe just indulge him, he isn’t sure, but they’re too tight around his teeth and Harry fucks in right then, so he bites down and groans around them instead. 

Harry drives in till he’s balls deep, so big Louis’ legs start jerking around wildly, hips trying to squirm away even as he’s got no space to flee, even as he’s arching into it by his own will. Harry stills inside him for two seconds, then pulls out to the head and shoves in again, and again, and again, and again.

It’s only been about a week, but Louis’ missed it so much, getting stretched just past what’s comfortable, having it hurt so good, having Harry panting, cursing, growling into his ear like he’s never had anything better his entire life.

“I love you,” he blabbers deliriously, once Harry moves his fingers out of his mouth, “love you so much, Haz, miss you, I—”

“Can I slap you?”

“I— what? Spank me? Yeah—” Harry does so immediately, “ _ah_ \- yeah, just—”

“I meant—” Harry slaps his arse again, so hard he slaps back by instinct, and Harry slaps his arse harder for it, “I meant your— ah, _ungh_ — meant your face. Wanna slap your face.”

Louis just pants wildly for a few seconds, trying to process the request while being pounded into like he’s made of something far more sturdythan he is. “Why?” he manages.

“Cause, _ah_ ,” Harry rests his mouth at Louis’ ear again, “cause I think you’re a fucking whore and that makes me want to treat you like one.”

“Yeah, okay,” Louis rasps, because Harry’s voice vibrates so lowly against his ear that his skin’s prickling all the way down to his shoulder, “fuckin’ kinky tonight, hu—”

Harry slaps the side of his face, accompanied by a hoarse; “shut the _fuck_ up.”

He does, from then on, and Harry fucks him the hardest he ever has, talks to him the worst he ever has, says things Louis’ only ever heard him say to someone else through a wall, slaps him over the arse, the face, and the face again, and again and then asks him “can I spit on you?” and Louis just pants out _yes,_  too far gone to think as he spurts hard up his own stomach.

Nothing’s quite the same after he’s come.

Harry gets increasingly more horrible with his words, to a point that Louis has to look back at him just to be sure it’s the same man fucking him as when they started, and increasingly more violent when he slaps Louis. He spits into Louis’ hair first, which he only knows because he hears it, then gets brave and spits on the side of his face a couple times, then pries his mouth open by the fingers and spits into it. When he finally pulls out, Louis’ been done for about thirty minutes. Harry tells him he’s a worthless used-up fucking whore once more, just in case he hadn’t heard any of the first forty-two times, and then dickslaps the side of his face a couple times before creaming all over it and into his hair.

Louis still lies closed-eyed on his stomach when Harry rolls off somewhere on the carpet beside him.

They lie there, panting like they’re hyperventilating, for what could be anything between five and twenty-five minutes before someone moves. It isn’t Louis, because Louis isn’t even sure he _can_ move. It’s Harry, who sits up beside him, shuffling around and then dabbing something that must be his t-shirt up the side of Louis’ face. He pulls Louis’ jeans back over his arse for him and then stops touching him altogether.

Louis blinks his eyes open, meeting the wall across from him. He doesn’t say anything.

“Are you okay?” Harry asks, hardly a breath.

Louis doesn’t even know what to do with that question. “Are _you_?” is the only possible response he can think of. When Harry doesn’t answer, he says, “I didn’t like that.”

“No,” Harry whimpers, like he knew it already, “me neither.”

Louis finally rolls around and looks at him. He’s sitting with his thighs pulled up to his chest, arms clinging to his legs, forehead rested on his knee.

“Why’d you do it, then? If you don’t even like it?”

Harry lifts his head just a little, mouth pressing into his knee, expression almost agonized, eyes just on the brink of brimming over. He shakes his head like he doesn’t know the answer.

“Is it cause it turns you on?”

Harry nods, pliant like a child. His hair’s gone massive and curly around his head, the fronts of it clinging  to the edges of his sweat and tear-stained face.

“So, it turns you on, but you don’t like it.”

Harry lifts his mouth, chin sliding onto the top part of his knee. “I just,” he says on a shaky little voice, mouth wobbling, “I can’t think of anything else. All day. Every day. Every hour. I can’t get the thoughts to go away, I can’t look at anyone and not see them like that, I can’t, I hate myself, I feel so fucking disgusting, I can’t make it stop, it won’t ever go away.”

Louis stifles the urge to cry at the look of Harry, instead reaching out to pet his leg. “Not see them like what, Harry?”

“Like— like, that. I can’t have a normal conversation without thinking of it, I can’t go half a day, I can’t see someone walk past, I can’t focus at work, I’ve had so many warnings, I always lose my job after a while, I can’t have a relationship, I can’t fuck normally, I can’t treat people right, even the ones I love, even the ones I love more than _anything_ , I fucking— I just fucking _spat_ in your mouth.”

“That’s okay,” Louis says quickly, “don’t focus on that, that’s not what it’s about. Talk to me. Is this, like— this is an addiction, isn’t it? This isn’t healthy, this isn’t— this is horrible for you, Harry, you shouldn’t have to live with this, there are ways to work through this sort of thing—”

“I know the ways,” Harry says, wiping angrily at his cheeks with the back of his hand, “I’ve _tried_ all the ways. I’ve tried _everything_ , I’ve— there _is_ no cure, for me, Louis. They can’t figure out what it is, there’s nothing wrong with my brain, my hormone levels are normal, my dick, my knot, there’s no explanation. I’ve been on every pill, I’ve been in therapy for years, I’ve even been to fucking rehab, twice.”

“ _What_? When?”

Harry gives a bitter little smile. “Remember those internships in New York years back?”

“Oh.” Louis drops his gaze, trying to focus. His arse aches worse than it ever has after sex, one side of his face feels simultaneously burning hot and numb, and he’s just been _spat in the fucking mouth_ , but he can’t think of any of that right now. He can’t think of anything but; “how the hell did I not know this? Aren’t I your best friend?”

Harry licks over his lips, crooks of his poor sweet mouth still dragging down every time he doesn’t actively fight to keep them up. “You’re not my best friend,” he says, and Louis stomach drops, because— what, “you’ve never been just a friend to me, Lou, cause— you’ve always been the only one that I knew, you know. That I knew if I ever… that, whenever I tried again, with a new pill or therapist or another round of rehab, I always thought if I could get normal, if I could be someone you deserve, then maybe one day, we could…”

He screws his eyes shut, several tears rolling from them. Louis opens his mouth to say something, but nothing comes out, only a few tears of his own drop into it.

Harry opens his eyes again, pinning them to the ceiling and sniffling hard. “I just always knew you and I were meant to be more, but then, for whatever fucked-up reason, I’m fucking incapable of not treating you like fucking _shit_. I didn’t want you to know these things about me, I was always hoping I could cure myself before you ever had to know, but—”

“You’ve not treated me like shit.”

Harry snorts out something resembling a laugh. “I just  _spat_ in your fucking mouth.”

“A lot of people like that. I can learn to live with that.”

Harry shakes his head, scratching at his knee. “Louis, I’ve not touched anyone at all other than you since we started and I can just feel— this is really, _really_ horrible, but I can feel it, I know it.” He looks up again. “If we stay together, I’m going to end up cheating on you. I am. I know myself.”

“Harry—”

“And if I do it once, I know you might forgive me and then I know I’ll do it again, eventually, and you’ll forgive it again, and I’ll fucking hate myself, and then I’ll do it again and you’ll be sick of it and you’ll leave and I’ll have wasted all your time and hurt you so badly and I just—”

“What about The Snip?”

Harry’s eyes widen. “You’re not serious.”

“Have you ever thought about it?”

“No,” Harry says, but he’s lying, he’s clearly lying, “I don’t— I can’t do that. Fifty percent of them can’t get their cocks hard on their own after, at all. Fifteen can’t even when they take those little blue pills. Meaning, they can’t _ever_ have sex again. Ever. Irreversible. _Ever_. And you smell different, your colleagues can smell it, your future employers, your friends, your family, omegas, you’re a fucking laughing-stock. You can’t even fuck your own mate. I hate living like this, I do, but I _cannot_ live the rest of my life without sex, either. I can’t do that.”

“Yeah, but— this is getting in the way of everything, you can’t even—”

Harry throws a hand out, cutting him off. “I’m not talking about this,” he says, voice suddenly sharp, “I’m not letting this turn into— I’m not— this is _exactly_ why I don’t talk about this, I’m not talking about this with you, you don’t understand—”

“But—”

“No. This is just— no. _No_ ,” he gets up, kicking Louis’ hand off when Louis tries to grab him, “no, I’m not— I should’ve never told you, I should’ve never said it, fuck. _Fuck_.”

Harry slams his hand into the railing right where he did it the last time, then marches up the stairs and through the house and into his car, driving off before Louis has a chance to catch him.    


	13. Chapter 13

He’s been driving around for hours when he pulls back into the driveway that evening. Or night, rather. It’s pitch-black out, pissing rain, and there are no lights on in any of the front facing windows. As he was driving, he passed a public rest stop where he used to get his cock sucked through something as cliche as a glory hole, and it took all he had in him not to pull in there tonight. Instead, he stopped a few streets away from there, behind a closed-down old Nando’s and jerked off to a shaving cream-advert on a billboard across from him because he’d left his phone back at the house.

That was about forty minutes ago and now he’s got his cock in hand again. There’s nothing to look at, nothing to watch, and he sits there, furiously yanking at his sore-fucked cock, for twenty minutes before giving up, feverish hot and sweating.

He gets out of the car, squeezing his bulge as he sneaks into the house, silent as possible. There are no sounds coming from inside, nor the garden-area when he walks through the common room, or the bedrooms when he hurries up the stairs. He gets to his room, finds his phone tossed on the mattress, then searches up the nastiest video he can in a matter of seconds, and pulls himself off to it.

Afterwards, he feels miserable. Like he did after he wanked soon as he woke this morning. Like he did after he pulled one off in his office before lunch. Like he did after he did the same twice before finishing the work day. Like he did when he spent three hours in his room, trying to keep away from everyone, watching clip after clip after clip, worse every time. Like he did after he took his fucked-up self out on Louis in the playroom earlier.  

Like he always does, once he reaches clarity and finds that he’s ended up in a place he told himself a million times over that he wouldn’t come to again.

There’s a certain safety in it, he thinks; a familiar sort of numbness. His brain turns off and his instincts kick in, the need becomes so all-consuming that nothing else matters, not who, not where, not even what he’s doing to Louis, sometimes. There’s a safety in it which makes it dangerously alluring just to let himself drown. Just to tell himself that this is okay, this is all right, this might be a bit too much for most people, but it’s just him, it’s just who he is.

Because, really, he has no fucking clue who he is if he isn’t this.

It’s a crutch, he knows, he isn’t stupid and the endless string of therapists he’s been to over the years weren’t either. It’s an eating disorder, it’s an abusive relationship, it’s a crippling anxiety, it’s something that started out as a bit of an issue and slowly became his best friend. If he hasn’t got the numbness that comes just before he comes, then maybe the misery that comes after is all he’ll have left.

So, he can’t do what Louis suggested. He can’t do what his last three doctors recommended before he walked out on them, decided there had to be another way, a way where he didn’t have to let it go entirely.

He isn’t _that_ fucking fucked up.

 

*

 

He bumps into Louis while walking out of the loo the following morning, phone in hand.

“Hey,” Louis mutters, arms crossing over his chest. His eyes are puffy and red and Harry bites down on the insides of his cheeks to keep from leaping forward and gathering him up in his arms.

“Hey,” Harry says, “how are you?”

Louis shakes his head, making an exasperated noise. “Jesus, Harry.” He looks up again, eyes narrowed, incredulous, “you ran out on me. I didn’t know where the fuck you’d gone, I— I didn’t know if you were going to get yourself hurt or you were— I’ve not fucking slept all night.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry says, voice turning whimpery, pathetic like he feels inside. “I’m sorry, you shouldn’t’ve stayed up, I just, I just needed— I just didn’t want to give you the wrong idea, I had to get out.”

Louis scoffs. “The wrong idea? What, after fucking me and spitting on me and then running out on me when you’d _finally_ opened up a bit, you thought, hey, no, wait, better not give him the idea that we’re, what? Boyfriends again?”

“I just—”

“Newsflash, Harry, I’m not a fucking imbecile. I know you don’t want that, I know you fucking me didn’t mean that, but— I don’t understand why you can’t even talk to me anymore, as your _best_ fucking friend. I don’t understand why you go all defensive when I bring up the possibility - just the _possibility_ \- of The Snip, you could’ve just explained to me calmly why you didn’t think that was a good idea and then we could’ve—”

“No,” Harry cuts off, “no, I— yeah. Yeah,” he rambles, “yeah, but that’s not… that’s not an option, at all, that’s… no. You shouldn’t worry about me. You shouldn’t think— you shouldn’t be keeping awake. You should just— you should just, please, stop worrying about me. Please.”  

Louis nods, but doesn’t look the least bit convinced. “Harry,” he says, voice softer, “I love you. It is not possible for me not to worry about you. I’d just love it if you’d trust that I’m not out to fucking— I’m on _your_ side. I’m on _your_ side, Haz, I’m only ever out to help you be happy.”

“I _am_ happy,” Harry says, forcing the crooks of his down-drooping mouth up, “I _am_. And I’m sorry about last night, I was just— tired, I guess.”

Louis drops his head, shaking it again. Harry doesn’t know what he’s said wrong and why it’s making Louis’ brows draw together like he’s going to cry, but it physically hurts to keep the three feet of distance necessary not to end up doing something stupid again.

“I hate that you do that,” Louis half-whispers, head still bowed, “lie to me. I hate that you think I’m someone you can’t talk to about this. Yesterday, I thought you were finally opening up, that we could finally talk properly, but now you’re fucking— fucking clamming up again like I’m a fucking stranger who’ll hold any of this against you. I’d _never_ hold it against you. I’d never do that.”

It hurts when Harry swallows. “I’m not lying. I wouldn’t— I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“No?” Louis lifts his head, eyes watery, but hard still, “did you just have a wank in the loo?” he nods at the phone Harry’s clutching so hard it’s denting the inside of his hand, “did you just watch some shit and wank, just now?”

Harry bites his lip. Louis doesn’t let his gaze go, just keeps staring, waiting, holding his breath.

“No,” Harry lies.

Louis spins around. “ _Fuck_!” he hisses, dropping his face into his hands. “You don’t trust me, you don’t trust me at all, you, I— I can’t do anything, I can’t fucking— _fuck_. Fuck you. I’ve done nothing to make you lie to me like this, I can’t— I can’t do this, fuck.”

He begins to march back down the hall toward his room and Harry’s chest feels so tight he can’t hardly find the breath to call after him, but then he does. Then he yells out; “you don’t want some fucking limp dick!”

Louis stops in the middle of hall. “What the fuck,” he grits, back tense, “are you talking about?”

“You don’t want some fucking limp dick,” Harry repeats, and he’d be laughing at how ridiculous it sounded if he hadn’t cried about it far too many times to find it funny anymore, “you don’t want a beta. You don’t date beta’s. You never do.”

Louis turns around. “That’s not true,” he says weakly.

“But it is,” Harry says, “it _is_ , Lou. You don’t date beta’s and you don’t date alpha’s who aren’t tall enough or strong enough and you love a big, properly hard cock, you’ve told me so many times, you fucking— you want a real man. You don’t want some bitch who can’t get his dick hard without swallowing three pills two hours before.”

Louis’ eyes twitch. “What the fuck are you on about?”

“You know what I’m on about,” Harry says, stepping closer, “you want someone who smells right. You want someone who acts - who _re_ -acts - right. You want someone who fucks right. You want a proper alpha. You don’t want some fucked-up freak who’s willingly gone and made himself fucking impotent. Not in the long haul. You’ve told me before, I know you couldn’t live with that. I _know_ you couldn’t, I know, I— I _know_ you.”

He presses his lips together hard to keep them from visibly quivering.

“Listen,” Louis says, slowly, “I’m only going to say this to you one more time and then I’m going to stop because I can’t keep on with this, and you can’t base such a big fucking decision on what I find attractive or not, that’s fucking insane,” he looks right up into Harry’s eyes, “I don’t want a beta. I don’t want a snipped alpha. I don’t want a normal alpha. I don’t want sex. I,” he says, “want _you_. I want _you_. That’s it. That’s literally all I want.”

Harry opens his mouth to object, because he’s known Louis for too long, he’s seen the men Louis dates and the men that he definitely _doesn’t_ , but then Louis raises his brows at him so sharply that his mouth snaps shut again.

“And don’t you fucking dare,” he says, voice croaky, “tell me that I don’t really mean that. Because _that_ —” he clears his throat, shaking his head, “that is literally _all_ that I’ve meant since the first time I ever saw you.”

He turns around with that, head dropping down soon as he does, and it’s the hardest thing in the world not walking after him. Not telling him that, even if it’s sometimes overshadowed by this ever-expanding, sex-starved _monster_ inside of himself, Harry feels the same. Always feels the same.

 

*

 

So, he makes a promise to himself in that moment. It’s not the first time he’s made that promise, not even close, but it’s the first time he’s made it after having had Louis, after having really seen just how much he could have if he didn’t fuck it up for himself every time, and maybe that makes a world of a difference. Maybe he’ll be strong enough this time.

He makes a promise to himself to go celibate again. Properly celibate. No girls, no boys, no porn, no toys. No wanks at all. Nothing.

He lasts exactly five days.

Throughout the week, he’s managed all right. He’s woken up, taken an ice-cold shower, then kept his eyes on the ground or on walls or other asexual objects as much as he possibly could - in fact so much that his superior snapped at him for being rude and not making eye-contact several times. But it worked. Once he got home in the evenings, he ate with his eyes on the plate, then went straight up to his room and stayed there, watching children’s television shows on his computer to keep from getting turned on. Camille did make it particularly difficult for him Thursday evening, when she strutted into his room wearing nothing but knickers, asking if he’d seen her iPhone charger.

He survived, only by taking a shower so cold his balls shriveled up into himself and stayed there for the rest of the night.

So, by Friday, he’s on his toes. Not just because he’s almost made it an entire week, which constitutes as a small milestone, and that if he gets home still on the wagon tonight, he’s planned to tell Louis that he’s made it thus far and prove to him that he’s got control of this, that he’ll get better for him. Not just because of that.

He’s also on his toes because of Nathan.

Nathan, a nineteen-year-old university student, has been coming round Harry’s workplace every Friday since he’s been here and probably a while before that, too. He’s somebody’s nephew, and comes with a cart full of what he refers to as ‘Friday Cakes’ that he sells round the entire office. He brings smiles and laughter and a fine amount of pocket-money home every time he comes here, and is seemingly harmless, but— Harry made the mistake of informing him that he was single again when he drunk texted the other day. And, before Louis and Harry got together, Nathan was more than a little fond of finishing his bake-sale by crawling under Harry’s desk and sucking him off.

So fond, in fact, that this Friday, he’s determined to make it impossible for Harry to stay on the wagon, no matter how hard he tries to hold on.

“You said you didn’t have a boyfriend anymore,” he sing-songs, dragging a finger along the length of Harry’s desk, “I’ve saved your text so don’t try and take it back, Mr. Styles.”

Harry groans, trying to focus on a work-related email on his laptop. Or, he thinks it’s work-related. He isn’t really sure, since he can’t fucking read with how fast the blood is rushing to his stupid cock. “Stop calling me that,” he grits.

“Stop calling you what?” he walks around the desk and starts coming closer, the scent of his slick infesting Harry’s nostrils, making his trousers go tight. “Mr. Styles?” he sits up on the desk just by Harry’s laptop. “But that is your name, isn’t it? Mr. Styles.”

Harry swallows, resisting the urge to wipe a hand across his sweaty forehead. “Stop talking like you’re in a bloody porno, you sound ridiculous,” he says, and it’s true, but his cock doesn’t seem to want to agree. “And I’m back with my boyfriend.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am,” Harry lies, lifting his gaze to shoot Nathan a sharp look.

It’s a mistake. It’s a terrible fucking mistake. Nathan licks over his lips just as he catches Harry’s attention, then sticks two fingers into his own mouth and starts sucking on them, moaning exaggeratedly. His jeans are bulging and he smells so strongly Harry wouldn’t be surprised if there was a tight nineteen-year-old arse-shaped slick-print on his desk when Nathan got up.

“Christ, this isn’t normal,” he says to the kid, “no one gets this fucking riled up about a blowjob.”

“You do,” Nathan says, slapping his spitslick fingers off on his own cheek and smirking smugly down toward where Harry’s trousers feel about to burst. “Come on, your boyfriend doesn’t have to know. It’s just a helping hand. Or mouth, rather.”

“You’ve watched too much porn,” Harry says, as though he isn’t the last person in the world to ever accuse anyone of that, “you sound ridiculous.”

“You’re right,” Nathan says, but he’s still smirking, still licking his lips much too much for what’s normal, “you’re right, I’m so sick of the screen,” he pushes off the desk and drops to his knees, then starts crawling round it, arching his back because he knows Harry doesn’t have the willpower not to watch, “I want the real deal.”

“Nathan—”

He’s under the desk then, coming up between Harry’s legs. “I remember how big you are. I can’t stop thinking about it, I can’t stop thinking about sucking on your big fat—”

“Chuck!”

The door flies open as Harry’s superior sticks his head in. “Is Chuck in here?” he asks, just before his gaze drops a bit and he sees the feet sticking out from under the desk.

“I, uhm— no, I think Chuck just left,” Harry croaks.

His superior just goes red in the face and grits, “well, you can go home too” before closing the door.

“Fuck,” Harry hisses, jumping out of his chair and nearly kicking the poor kid in the face, “fuck, this isn’t good.”

He slams his laptop shut and stuffs it into his bag, grabs his blazer and tries to walk around Nathan, who’s now planted himself on the floor in front of him.

“You going out with that tent in your trousers?” Nathan snort-laughs, but Harry just covers it with his bag and hurries out of his office.

He finds his superior again, but gets brushed off and told _just go home and collect yourself, Styles_. He doesn’t have to ask to know that he’ll be called in to a particular sort of meeting next week; he’s seen the look on his superior’s face on too many faces in too many places by now. In the parking lot, Nathan’s waiting by his car - how he knows Harry’s car, Harry doesn’t know, nor dwell on - and Harry’s so angry and hard, still, that he loses his last inhibitions.

“Get in, then,” he hisses, shoving the kid into the passenger’s seat.

He doesn’t know what he’s doing when he starts to drive, only that he’s too angry to think straight, too hard to say no when Nathan undoes his trousers and starts to suck on him. He ends up driving home on autopilot, too focused on straining not to get too into the head that he’s getting and drive them into a ditch to consider going elsewhere.

When he pulls into the front lot and parks, Nathan pops off his dick and looks up at him, mouth spitslick and swollen. “Are we going inside?” he asks, “I’ll let you fuck me.”

The thought rips a growl right out of Harry’s throat before he has a chance to stifle it, but then he looks up and sees all the lights on in the house, sees Louis walk through the common room, oblivious and lovely as he goes about his job like any normal adult would at this hour.

“No,” Harry says, “we’re not going inside. We, uhm… we need to finish this, this shouldn’t—”

Nathan dips down and starts to suck him again and Harry’s head lolls back with a broken moan. He tangles his fingers into the kids hair, closes his eyes and lets himself go, fucks up into his mouth and makes him gag a couple times, tells him exactly what he is and how his mum must be ashamed about that fact, and Nathan gets slicker and slicker, until the only thing Harry can breathe in the space of the tiny car is his scent and then—

The front door slams open. Louis comes running out.

“— _shit_!”   

Harry pushes the kid off of him. “Wha’?” he rasps, wiping his mouth with the back of his wrist.

“Down, get down!” Harry hisses, pushing his head down, “stay there!”

The kid curls in on himself in his seat, still frowning up at Harry, and Harry tucks his dick back in and does his trousers up on shaking, frantic hands.

“Stay there,” he says again, “don’t move.” He gets out of the car, standing behind the open door to cover his less than concave crotch-area, “hiya.”

Louis, who’d gone directly to his own car and then come running back again, finally notices Harry and his car. His eyes blow wide.

“What are you doing here?” he exclaims, running closer. “Why aren’t you at work?”

“Got off early,” Harry says, fighting not to let his gaze flicker to the curled-up teenager in his passenger-seat. “What are you running for?”

“I, ehm, I…” Louis pants, stopping just a few feet short of Harry’s car. If he comes any closer, there’s no way he won’t see Nathan. “Emmy, she’s— her water’s just broke. She’s— she needs to be taken to the hospital like, right the fuck now, but Liam’s in fucking Sheffield for a meeting so he won’t be here for another hour and we can’t get hold of Zayn.”

“Okay, I— fuck, can’t you drive her?”

“Can’t leave the kids,” Louis says, “can’t fit ‘em all in my car, plus Emmy.” His gaze glides over Harry’s fully functioning vehicle. “If you drive her, I’ll stay back with the kids and try and get hold of Zayn. Liam’s going to be at the hospital soon as he can.”

Fuck. _Fuck_. “Oh, but I, uhm—”

“You said you got off work. Do you have somewhere to be? Can’t you do this, please, we need your help?”

“Yes, but I—”

In the same second, Micky comes running out of the house. “Emmy’s got a stomach ache!” he screams, “Lou, Emmy says she can’t find her materdity bag and her stomach hurts!”

“Shit.” Louis turns and grabs him by the shoulders, tells him where the bag is and to get it, then throws a grateful look back at Harry, “thanks, Haz! You’re a life saver!”

He rushes back into the house to get Emmy and Harry stands stiff, like his prick in his trousers, clutching the top of his open car-door.

“Was that your boyfriend?” Nathan asks from the passenger-seat.

Harry spins around. “Fuck, you’ve got to go.”

“What do you mean, I—”

“You’ve got to go. Like, _now_!”

“Where?”

“I don’t know, I don’t care, just, fuck—” he rips far too many bills out of his wallet without looking at them, sticking them in the confused kid’s hand and pulls him out of the car. “Get yourself a taxi or something, just please— leave, now, I’m sorry, just please go.”

Nathan takes a quick glance at the money he’s had stuffed in his hands, then lights up, smiles and runs off down the street.

Harry lets out a long sigh of relief.

“Fuck, I’m never doing this again!” Emmy’s shouting, coming out of the house just then, fast followed by Louis and a massive quilted bag of baby-necessities, “I wish I could transfer this pain onto all of you guys and be free of it, I don’t give a fuck, this is horrible—”

Louis chuckles breathily, smile so innocent when he meets Harry’s eye that Harry wants to puke at himself. And he’s _still_ fucking hard, he’s still about to burst through his trousers, still squirming to keep from being obvious, to keep from touching himself just for a bit of relief.

Emmy gets strapped in the passenger’s seat, and Harry counts himself lucky that neither her nor Louis is alpha so they don’t detect the smell of Nathan’s scent, even as it makes Harry’s face go bright red soon as he gets back in the car. God, he’s not going to survive this.

“Anyone know the route to the hospital? I’ve never driven there from here,” he croaks.

“I do, just drive,” Emmy replies.

“S’about ten minutes away,” Louis adds, sticking his head in the passenger’s seat.

“ _Ten minutes_?”

“That’s not too bad, is it?” Louis says, gaze moving to Emmy, “you’ll survive till then, yeah?”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s fine, ten minutes is fine as long as we fucking drive already.”

“Yeah,” Harry says, swallowing hard as he turns the key and rearranges himself in his seat to try and help the relentless bloodsuckerin his trousers, “yeah, ten minutes is fine.”

Of course, they don’t make it to the hospital in ten minutes. Not even by far.


	14. Chapter 14

He gets hold of Zayn five minutes after he’s seen Harry and Emmy off. He’d been in a meeting - which in Zayn-language means he’d turned off his phone and had a nap in his office - but is now on his way straight to the hospital. Louis texts both Harry and Emmy immediately and, when after five minutes he hasn’t gotten a response, tries calling Harry up. They should be at the hospital by now. Harry did look a bit flustered, though, a bit red in the face, and since he was home from work early, Louis did worry he might’ve been coming down with something.

 **Hope you’re not ill, sorry to send you off like that** , he sends.

After that, he spends a bit of time texting round to all the housemates, letting them know, and then calming the kids with cheese and tomato sandwiches and television.

“Where the baby gonna sleep?” Erin asks after a while.

“In Zayn and Liam’s bed, I think,” Louis replies, “or maybe in the cot, I’m not sure, actually,” he says, turning to involve some of the soon-to-be-big brother’s, “haven’t your dads got one of those cots that attach to the side of the bed, Ellio—”

His phone starts to ring. He takes it to the front hall.

It’s Zayn calling. “Yeah, hi, mate, what’s going on, everyone all right?”

“I don’t know, I’m at the hospital,” Zayn replies, “I’ve just asked at the reception, Emmy’s not come in yet. I’ve called both her and Haz, they’re not picking up. Any idea where they might be?”

Louis frowns at his reflection in the wall-mirror across from him. “No. What?”

“They’re not here,” Zayn repeats, “I’ve asked, they take the names at the reception, they’d know if she were here, they’re not— hang on, I’m getting a text.” There’s a bit of shuffling around, the sounds of crying children and yelling nurses in the background. “Nope,” Zayn says, getting to the phone again, “just Liam saying he hasn’t heard from them either.”

Louis stills. “What?” he says, “they’re— they left half an hour ago. It shouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes from here, tops. They should be there.”

“Well, they’re not here.”

“You sure you gave them the right name? At the reception?”

Zayn scoffs. “Yes, I’m sure I gave the right fucking name, I made her turn the bloody screen to see her type it and everything. They’re not fucking here.”

“But…” Louis scratches at his lower lip. “Ehm… you sure you haven’t misunderstood something? What hospital are you at?”

“The right one,” Zayn hisses, before puffing a shaky breath of air into the phone. “Wythenshawe. S’the right one, innit?”

“Yeah. It’s the one Emmy said before she left, so. Unless I misheard her, I— I really don’t reckon I did, though. I swear she said Wythenshawe.” They both fall silent for a moment. “The only thing I can think of is Harry didn’t know the route, so maybe Emmy had it wrong too and they’ve driven the wrong way or ended up at the wrong hospital.”

“Right.” Zayn’s sigh sounds like relief. “Right, of course, that’s what’s happened.”  

“Yeah.” Louis bites at his fingernail. “Yeah.”

“Okay. Okay, I— thanks for helping out with the kids and that, mate, I’m gonna get off the phone and try ringing them again.”

“No problem, you do that, I’ll try too. See you.”

“See you. Love you.”

“Love you too, mate.”

He hangs up and dials Harry first thing. It goes straight to voicemail. Then he dials Emmy and the same thing happens. Then he sends an abundance of texts to the both of them, receiving absolutely no response at all. Then he texts both Zayn and Liam to ask if they’ve gotten hold of anyone yet. Then he gets a text, but it’s just Liam, saying he didn’t, and then Zayn, saying the same.

Then he starts to get anxious.

“You all right in here?” he asks, sticking his head back into the common room. The kids are all consumed by the telly again, curled up on the couch. “You guys need anything?”

“Ice cream,” Elliot says.

“Maybe later, all right?” Louis says distractedly, and all the little heads snap up, eyes going wide and bright. “Only maybe,” he quickly tacks on, “later on. I’m just going out into the hall, just call out if you need anything, yeah?”

They give half hearted yes’es, not particularly interested in anything non ice cream-related.

Louis goes back out into the hall and checks his messages. He’s gotten one from Niall, asking if the twins are all right, one from Kate, saying she’ll be home in about an hour, and one more from Zayn, asking if he’s heard from Harry or Emmy.

He texts Zayn no, then calls up Harry again even though he knows he’s going to get the voicemail before he’s even pressed the button. He tries once more anyway, then calls Camille at her work, asking if he’s heard from Emmy.

“No, why, isn’t she at the hospital?”

“No, she’s, ehm— well, don’t get scared or anything, but we can’t actually figure out where she is. Harry drove off with her, I thought they were going to Wythenshawe, but they should’ve been there by now and no one’s able to get hold of them.”

There’s a thumping noise. “What do you mean, you can’t get hold of them?” Camille hisses, “call them.”

“I _have_ called them. Everyone has. They’re not picking up.”

“But—” she’s silent for three full seconds, then says; “what, so what you’re telling me is, her water broke and you put her in a car with that fucking sex maniac and now you don’t know where the fuck he’s taken her?”

Louis bristles. “He’s not a fucking maniac, I’m sure they’re fine, they probably couldn’t find the right route and, I don’t know, calm down.”

“Calm down? The man can’t see half a thigh without having an epileptic seizure, why the fuck would you put a pregnant woman in a car with him, I don’t—”

“Calm the fuck down!” Louis screams, instantly regretting when the kids overhear him and start calling out for him from the next room. “Sorry,” he sighs, “I know you’re just worried, but blaming it all on anyone won’t help us figure out where the hell they’ve gone. Just keep calling around and I’ll drive out to look for them once Kate gets back.”

“Okay. Okay. Fuck, okay.”

He goes and retrieves some vanilla ice cream from deep in the freezer and serves all the kids up a bowl each, then sits with them and watches Moana while checking his phone every other second. Ten minutes have passed when the front door gets slammed open and Camille barges in.

“Got off early,” she pants, “I’m getting really worried, I—”

“Oi!” Louis blurts, gesturing manically out at the four pairs of young ears curiously listening in. “Wanna go chat in the kitchen?”

She nods, hurrying off there. Louis follows.

“What’s going on? ‘ve you spoken to anyone?”

“Zayn,” Camille says, pulling her phone out while Louis does the same, “they still don’t know where the hell they—” they both receive a message at exactly the same time.

**Zayn - Liam’s just arrived. We’re getting really worried**

Louis and Camille look up at exactly the same time. She bites her lip. He swallows, hard.

He’d been keeping the nerves a bit at bay, concentrating on the kids, concentrating on constantly telling himself that there’s got to be a reasonable explanation, that they’ve probably just ended up at the wrong hospital and had to rush to the delivery room.

But, that doesn’t really explain Harry not answering anyone at all.

“Okay, ehm,” Louis says, clearing his throat mid sentence, “okay, I’m actually getting really worried right now.”

Camille nods, eyes wide, lip behind her teeth. They stare at each other for another couple seconds.

Then both their phones vibrate.

In retrospect, it’ll be one of those moments he remembers as happening in slow-motion, all noise drowning out save for the sound of his own heart hammering at his ribcage, his blood rushing through his veins.

In reality, it happens quick as anything.

Louis looks down and reads.

**Zayn - just got rung up. They were in an accident. They’re being brought here in ambulance. Dont know what the fuck is going on**

 

*

 

He starts to run soon as they’re let out of the lift on the right floor - hopefully. They got off one stop too early the first time around, too anxious to properly process what the woman at the reception had told them. Now he’s running half-aimlessly, but so is Camille, and not a cell in his body feels all right at the thought of slowing down.

Harry isn’t dead. That’s all he knows. That’s practically all he’s been told.

“Where’s room two thirteen?” Louis asks, grabbing a poor young nurse by both arms soon as he sees her. She points him in the direction he was already going in and he sets into a half-sprint again, Camille following right behind.

He barges into what he thinks is room two thirteen and is met with the sight of a preteen girl with her leg in a cast and a band aid round her skull.

“Sorry,” he mutters, backing up into Camille.

“Hey,” Camille pants, spinning him around and pointing to the next door, “think that’s it.”

Right. 213. He begins to take a deep breath, just bracing himself for the state Harry might be in. In the meantime, Camille slams the door open and marches right in.

“Harry?”

“Hi,” Harry replies, and Louis’ heart falls back into place. He’s able to talk, then.

He walks in.

Harry’s lying in a hospital-gown, playing around with his phone. There’s not so much as a scratch on his skin.

“Fucking hell,” Louis breathes out raggedly, “thought you’d be in a coma or something.”

“No, I’m okay, they just took me in for observation cause my back and neck hurt a bit,” he says, “any news on Emmy? I’ve not been getting any replies from Liam or Zayn since they separated us when we got here.”

Camille shakes her head. “We don’t even know if she’s in the delivery room or anything right now, we don’t even know if she’s okay or—” she drops her head back, closing her eyes.

Louis gives her side a squeeze.

“Hey, she’s not, uhm,” Harry says, hands fidgeting terribly, “she was talking and stuff when we were in the ambulance, she wasn’t bleeding or anything. They said the same as they said to me, that there wasn’t even visible trauma.”

Camille bites her lip, nodding manically. “What about the baby?”

“She was having really bad aches, but I don’t know whether, uhm—” he clears his throat, mouth trembling, “I don’t know whether that was cause of the contractions or whether the— whether I’d hurt the baby or—”

“ _Fuck_!” Camille hisses, slapping the foot of the bed, “fuck, what the fuck were you doing?!” She bends over, pressing her forehead into the mattress, “big fat fucking _idiot_.”

Harry looks like he’s about to cry, and Louis’ natural reaction, no matter how big of a fuck-up this is, is to try and make him feel better, try and remind him that he didn’t do any of this on purpose, but before he gets the chance to speak, a phone goes off.

Camille jumps up. “Hello?” she gasps. There’s a second’s silence, and then she lets out a sharp huff, hand flying up to clutch her own heart. “Hi, baby,” she whimpers, eyes welling up, “you all right?”

She bites her lip, smiling as her eyes brim over, tears rolling down both cheeks, and she nods at Louis, giving a thumbs-up.

“That’s fucking— fuck, that’s good to hear, I was so fucking scared, where are you? What floor? Okay, d’you know which room? Okay, I— okay, baby, I’ll be right there. I love you. I love you. Fuck, I— I’m so glad you’re all right.”

The phone cuts off and she looks up at Louis with a sharp sniffle and wide eyes. “They’re all right,” she says, “they’ve given her an epidural, but she’s all right, she’s dilating slowly, she’s on the second floor somewhere. Liam and Zayn are there too.”

Louis lets out a shaky breath. “All right. All right, that’s good, that’s good, that’s—”  

“Yeah.” Camille hurries past him, “yeah, I’m going!”

After she’s disappeared out of the room, Louis takes a second just to breathe. They’re all right. They’re both all right.

Then he hears the feathers creek and turns back around. “What are you doing?”

“Coming with,” Harry says, pulling off his hospital-provided trousers, “I need to be there, I need to see that they’re all right, I have to apologise, I can’t be lying here like a dead fucking fish when it’s all my fault, I have to—”

“Hey,” Louis grabs his jeans off the chair by the bed before Harry gets to them, “hey, hold on a sec. Aren’t you supposed to stay here till you get the clear off your doctors or something?”

Harry shrugs a shoulder. “I’m fine. I’m fine,” he says, “I don’t, I— this can’t be about me, I can’t lie here like I’m the victim of something, I fucking— I drove a pregnant woman into a fucking lamp post, Louis.”

“Did you?” Louis asks, “that’s what happened?”

Harry’s brows twitch and he stills where he’s sitting sideways off the bed. “You didn’t—”

“I just got a text from Zayn and then Liam calling me, saying you’d been in an accident. All I managed to ask was whether you’d died or not and then he didn’t have time to talk anymore, I fucking—” he rips a hand through his hair, “I thought you were hurt. Like, properly hurt.”

“But, what—”

“Well, we kept calling, but people weren’t picking up, so we had to stay home till Kate got back and then we rushed here. We just rattled off your name first thing and they gave us your room number and we ran up here. _Fuck_ ,” Louis hisses, and Harry bites into his wobbling bottom lip, “Haz, I was _so_ scared.”

Harry nods, whimpering from low in his throat. He drops his head, shaking it as he wipes at his big red nose with the sleeve of his hospital-gown.

“Hey,” Louis says carefully, moving close enough to put a hand on his shoulder. “It was an accident. And she’s all right. You’re both all right and so is the baby, that’s the most important thing. Accidents like these happen all the time, it’s just, like—” he snaps his fingers, “one second’s lost concentration and you lose control of the wheel or summat. It wasn’t your fault.”

“It was.”

“No,” Louis sighs, putting the jeans away and sitting down beside him, “you didn’t mean for it to happen and you hadn’t had a drink at lunch or anything, had you?”

Harry shakes his head.

“No,” Louis slips his hand onto the small of Harry’s hunched back, stroking circles, “so it wasn’t your fault. There was no way you could’ve prevented it, it was just one of those horrible things, wasn’t it? Where you, I don’t know—”

“I could’ve prevented it,” Harry hisses, “I could’ve fucking— not driven when I knew that I was— when I know what I’m like.”

Louis frowns. “You’re a fine driver.”

“That’s not—” he cuts himself off, dropping his face into his hands and then wiping it. “That’s not what I meant, I just— I should’ve stayed with the kids and made you drive her instead, I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Were you feeling ill or something?” Louis says after a moment, when Harry’s stopped speaking altogether, instead just tugging at his own hair while Louis strokes his back, “you looked a bit sort of... ill before you left.”

Harry shakes his head, pushing off the bed then. “Yeah,” he says, “I’m ill all the fucking time, innit.”

 

*

 

They meet with Liam and Zayn outside the delivery room, waiting in hard plastic-chairs with cold cups of coffee and their fingers tightly intertwined. They assure Harry several times that they’re not angry with him, but begin to become it once he’s apologised a millionth time.

In the end, Louis squeezes his arm hard and hisses into his ear; “you’ve got to stop with the ’I’m so fucked up’-rant, okay? You got in an accident by fucking _accident_ , now shut up by fucking choice.”

Harry’s mouth zips shut and stays so for a while after that.

Then a nurse comes and calls Zayn and Liam into the room.

“Is she healthy?” Zayn exclaims, jumping from his chair while Liam carefully gathers all of their stuff.

“A perfectly healthy seven pound baby girl,” the nurse says, smiling sweetly.

Harry makes a hicuppy sound from where he’s buried his teeth in his bottom lip. His eyes are beaming, welling up again. Louis reaches over and squeezes his wrist.

“You’re all right, love,” he says once Zayn and Liam have gone, petting Harry’s hand, “you’re all right.”

Harry’s hand twitches a bit, then turns into Louis’ and curls around it. Louis squeezes and smiles softly. He leans in a little, then a little more, then presses a chaste peck to Harry’s still-quivering mouth.

“You’re all right, darling.”

Harry doesn’t look quite convinced, but squeezes Louis’ hand harder and doesn’t let it go until, a while later, Zayn and Liam come out to invite them in and meet the baby girl. Immediately as they’re let into the room, Louis rushes up to Emmy’s side, where Camille’s already sitting, and makes sure she’s all right.

“As all right as someone who’s just been in a car accident and shat a human being out through their vagina in the space of five hours can be, I suppose,” she drawls.

On the other bed, sits Zayn with the tiniest scrunchy-faced pinkwrapped little thing in his arms, and Liam by his side, fussing about supporting the head. Harry’s hovering above them, biting his nails as he studies the small human, probably dead-anxious that she’s going to drop dead in a second as a delayed result of the crash.

When he realises she probably isn’t, he turns his attention to Emmy, rushing to her side to apologise profusely. She pulls him close, assuring him that it wasn’t his fault and he just lost concentration for a second and that it could’ve happened to anyone and the whole spiel.

Louis goes and watches the little new, trying to worry about something other than Harry just for a second.

He still can’t help but notice it through the corner of his sight, though, when a nurse brings in a breast-pump and Emmy bares her chest and Harry watches tensely and Camille makes some joke that makes everyone but Harry smirk slyly, and then, eventually, Harry backs abruplty away and leaves the room.

Louis follows him to exactly the place that he expects Harry to go.

He waits outside, leaned back against the wall across from the toilet-door, arms crossed over his chest. What feels like twenty full minutes later, Harry comes out. Red-flushed, sweaty, dark-eyed and with that fucking phone in his hand.

“Oh,” he says, adam’s apple bopping.

“This isn’t good, Haz,” Louis says, softly, because isn’t angry, he isn’t Harry’s therapist or mum or even his boyfriend anymore. He’s just worried, is all. Really fucking worried for his best friend. “This is why— fuck, this is why you crashed, isn’t it?”

Harry flinches, face grimacing in disgust. “I was just—”

“You were turned on, weren’t you? When I put her in the car with you?” He pauses and Harry doesn’t say anything, the grimace staying put on his fucked-out face, “fuck. Fuck, I— I could see it on you, I could fucking _see_ something was off, I should’ve recognized that—”

“Wasn’t your fault,” Harry says, voice thin, “wasn’t your fault, I fucking _know_ myself. I know what I’m like and what I can do and what I can’t do, and yet I keep being fucking selfish, doing stuff that, like— trying to convince myself that I can do it and then fucking it all up and hurting people in the process.”

“But this isn’t— you were turned on,” Louis says, trying to comprehend, “without any reason? At all? Just driving yourself home from work and you get so turned on, so randomly, that you crash your car from it. That’s really bloody dangerous.”

“Well, I was—” Harry bites his lip, gaze flicking away, “but it doesn’t matter. I would’ve probably been turned on anyway, it happens so easily, it’s so fucking pathetic, it—”

Louis sighs. “I just hate it when you lie to me. All the other stuff, if you’ll let me, I want to help you with, but— when you lie, I just. I can’t do anything. I can’t do anything, then. If you only ever trust me with half-truths.”

“I was bringing a guy home.”

Louis closes his eyes.

“I was getting a blowjob and then, in the middle of it, you came running out and I just— I just sneaked him off before you came back out with her, I— the entire car fucking stunk. It fucking stunk, so badly, of slick, and I was _so_ hard and I was going dizzy from it, I couldn’t think, I just—”

“Okay.” Louis rubs the heels of his hands at the hollows of his eyes, letting out a long breath. “Okay, I— fuck you. Okay. Fuck, _fuck_ you. _Fuck_ , I hate you. Fuck.” He lets his head cock back against the wall, eyes opening again. “Sorry, I just— fuck, you’re such a _fucking_ arsehole. Fuck. Okay, fuck. Okay, sorry. Okay. Fuck.”

Harry frees his sore-bitten lip from the grip of his teeth. “I don’t even fancy him, it was just, it’s just— I can’t fucking help it,” he whispers. “Like, at all.”

Louis snorts, dropping his gaze to the floor. “You know, in general, that’s like— the number one bullshit excuse people make when they’ve gone with someone they regret. But in your case I think it’s actually just the truth,” he looks up, “and that doesn’t make any of it any better at all. It just scares me, Haz. For you. I think you need help. Like, serious help. Different help than you’ve had before.”

It feels like deja vu when he says it. Like having had the same conversation over and over again, always with the same end-result; no resolution at all.

“But that’s not something I can make you do,” he says, “that’s something you’ve got to do for yourself. Looking at all that, like—” he throws a hand out, slackly gesturing, “you’ve hurt both yourself and people that you care about. It’s not my choice, this. I’m not going to keep trying to convince you. I’m not the one who’s had to live with this my entire life.”

He walks off with that, feeling like the worst person in the world, feeling like turning around and marching right back and gathering Harry up in his arms, issues and all, and telling him he’ll keep fighting every day for the rest of his life, whether Harry changes anything or not, but he doesn’t. He can’t keep being pushed away and he can’t be the guy that enables Harry to keep getting worse either. He can’t do all the hurt anymore, really.

 

*

 

It’s quiet in the car home. Emmy, Camille, Zayn and Liam stay round the hospital while Harry gets discharged and Louis drives them home. At the house, Niall, Kate and Nick have kept the kids in the common room, still eating ice cream and watching Disney movies, wrapped up in duvets and jumping up when Harry and Louis arrives back.

Once through the initial _are you all right, are you all right, though, are you sure you’re all right_ ’s, Harry slips off upstairs and Louis slips inbetween the kids on the couch, showing them all a video Zayn took of the new addition to this big, dysfunctional family. Harry comes back down, to his surprise, with a duvet for Louis and one for himself, and then curls up in a loungechair and watches with a soft, sad sort of smile as Louis explains in exaggerated detail to the boys about their baby sister and what it’s like to have sisters and how to be a good big brother.

“I should know,” he tells them, “I’ve been told by very credible sources that I’m the best brother in the universe, so.”

“I have too, actually,” Niall chimes in.

“Yeah, me too,” Nick adds.

“Me too,” Harry drawls hoarsely. Louis doesn’t look over at him.

“None of you lot have several sisters, though, it doesn’t carry the same credibility as my statement.”

Harry chuckles a bit and Louis scratches at his duvet. He wonders, briefly, if he and Harry might’ve been better off never having moved into the same house at all. If they’d have been meeting at pubs or café’s for lunch, party’s and ballgames, laughing and chatting about all the things that used to come so natural.

Then again, going home with people that weren’t each other at the end of the night never did feel natural, even back then.

 

*

 

“This small?” Eve asks later in the evening, when she’s waddled into Louis’ bedroom spontaneously to ask the big questions of life and avoid getting her teeth brushed. She’s sitting on top of Louis’ duvet, in his lap, with her arms stretched out, trying to visualize just how impossibly small the new baby is.

“Even smaller,” Louis says, just as the door is knocked. “Think that’s your mum or dad coming to get you, love,” he says, just to see her eyes blow wide with panic, “come in.”

It isn’t her mum or dad. It’s Harry, with red eyes and heart-patterned boxers on.

“What’s going on?” Louis asks, voice failing him just a bit.

“Just wanted to, uhm—”

“Hearst!” Eve screams, pointing to Harry’s pants and then her own t-shirt, which coincidentally also has hearts on it, “look, me too!”

“Yeah,” Harry chuckles softly, padding a little closer, “we’ve both got hearts on, haven’t we?”

“Yes!”

“That’s cause we’ve both got excellent clothing styles, innit,” Harry says, and she just giggles.

Then she turns to Louis, looking his plain white t-shirt up and down. “Hm.”

“Nope,” Louis says, pouting a little, “haven’t got any hearts on, love, sorry to disappoint.”

“Hm.”

“Hm,” Louis smiles, petting her cheek, “you better go back down to mum and dad now, yeah? They’re probably looking for you.”

“No.”

“Yes, darling.”

She crosses her arms over her chest. “No.”

“Hey, what if I give you a piggyback ride down?” Harry offers, “I’ll go real fast, it’ll be fun.”

“Okay!”

She jumps up on his back and Harry runs off with her and Louis sits with a smile on his face that doesn’t fade for a bit. Doesn’t fade until one little lovely moment with Harry starts to remind him how good they could be, the two of them, in another life.

“Hey,” Harry says, coming back in again a bit later.

“Hey.”

Harry closes the door carefully behind himself, then comes closer, sitting down at the side of the bed. He rests his elbows on his knees, face in his hands, long dark locks falling down around them.

“You know, after all of this, today,” he says after a while, “you know, the first thing I did when I got back up to my room before? After all of this, before calling my mum or my sister or going and talking to you or anything?”

“You pulled your phone out and watched High School Musical on it?” Louis deadpans.

Harry turns his face in his hand, looking up at Louis. His smile is small, closed-mouthed and sad like it was downstairs earlier. “I’m sorry that I’ve treated you like shit, Lou.”

“You’ve not treated me like shit. You don’t treat people like shit. You treat people well because that’s who you are, but you just— it’s just difficult for you, innit?” Louis asks, “and it just hurts when I can’t help you. Cause you don’t trust me.”

“It’s just that I know what I’m going to be told,” he says, “in the end,” he shrugs a shoulder, “I know what I’ve got to do if I want to be able to have, like—” the crook of his mouth curls up a little and he drops his gaze, “like, when I see you with the kids and everything. It just makes me so incredibly sad because—” he pauses, taking a shaky breath in and swallowing hard.

“Cause you don’t feel like you’ll ever have all of that?”

Harry bites his lip, looking up. “Cause I want all of that every single time I look at you.”

“You can have it. You can have everything.”

“Not everything. I’ll be thirty soon, Lou, and I— something’s got to give. I’ve got to be a grown up about this before it’s too late because I know I’ll regret if I— cause I want to have something that lasts. I don’t want to be this person anymore, I can’t even last in _one_ fucking moment that means something so much more than sex, I just— I know that it’s the only thing I can do.”

Louis opens his mouth to ask him what, but doesn’t ever get to it. It doesn’t need to be said out loud because they both know what he means and they both know why that feels a bit like the end of the fucking world to Harry, or at least the only world that Harry’s ever known, so Louis doesn’t say it out loud. Not tonight.

Louis opens his duvet and tells him to come and lay and then he tells him, “if this accident today had left you useless waist-down for the rest of your life, I’d have still wanted you exactly as much as I always have. I want,” he taps Harry’s temple, “this. I want what you are. And you are not this addiction, Harry. I _know_ you. You aren’t.”

“I love you,” Harry whispers, whimpering a little as he tucks into Louis’ neck and claws at his back, “I want you too. All of you. I want to love you properly. I want to be able to more than anything, Lou.”

And Louis pulls him a little bit closer and kisses his cheek and says, “well, maybe one day you can.”

“Maybe one day.”

“Yeah.”


	15. Epilogue

“Watermelon! Watermelon up at the table, everyone!” Louis calls out, bringing a tray of fresh-sliced fruit out onto the patio and placing it by the pitcher of lemonade on one of the sofa-tables between the couches.

It’s one of the warmest days of the year so far, and Louis is wearing a thin white t-shirt and a pair of lightwashed mid-thigh denim shorts. Well, they were mid-thigh when he bought them, just a couple years back. Now they sit just a little higher up than what he’s used to, slightly too tight over his arse than what’s comfortable, and he’s already been bum-slapped twice just walking from the kitchen and out here.

But, well. Niall’s packed on half a stone since Christmas and yet he’s jumping shamelessly around in little blue Speedos. He, Kate and Liam are all in the large-sized blow up pool, tossing the kids about and trying not to drown them in the process. The garden hose, which was used to fill up the pool, is now the center of a slightly dangerous, very fun looking game of let’s-hose-each-other-down-until-someone-gets-seriously-hurt, involving Camille, Emmy, Nick and Teddy, who’s been sleeping over quite a bit lately. He makes Nick laugh a lot, calms him down when he just needs to shut the hell up, and fucks pretty well too - Louis should know, the wall separating his and Nick’s bedroom really is much too thin. Most importantly, though, Teddy is nothing at all like Dan. He’s only got eyes for Nick and Nick hasn’t mentioned Dan in months. 

“Lou-eeeeeeh,” someone sings from behind him, before a sharply fired palm collides with his arse, “booty shorts, eh?”

“They’re not,” Louis straightens up, tugging the treacherous trousers down, “they’re not booty shorts.”

“Well, they’re definitely showing off your booty regardless,” Zayn mutters.

Louis groans, sinking into the couch beside him before planking out, sweating as he yanks at his shorts once more. “Christ, they’re much too small, though,” he hisses, wiping sweat off of his forehead as he gives up on getting them to crawl just a little bit out from the crevice of his arse, “but it was them or full-length black jeans and the latter’s just basically a death-wish on a day like this.”

“Hm,” Zayn hums, but he isn’t really listening.

He’s busy applying what looks like a sixth layer of sunscreen onto Pumpkin’s face with utmost care and precision. The two-month-old, who - although no one ever talks about it, because that’d go against the entire purpose of having mixed up the sperm before inseminating the surrogate - has Zayn’s eyes and hair-colour, Emmy’s complexion, chin and lips, scrunches her nose and whines a little, then settles down in her dad’s arms again, grunting.

“Reckon she needs another layer or?”

Zayn rolls his eyes at him. “You wouldn’t understand,” he says, self righteous as he is, recently-hit-a-thousand-subscriber’s-on-Instagram daddy-blogger and all, “you’ll see one day when you have one of these. You’ll be coating them in sunscreen till they choke and die on it.”

Pumpkin squeaks at that, throwing a chubby little moist-for-no-apparent-reason fist out at Louis.

“She threw a punch at me,” Louis says, appalled, “she literally just tried to break my nose.”

“Well, she told me last night she thinks you’re a nasty piece of work, so that’s probably why.”

“Right, well, I suppose I can be at times so I can’t really blame her,” Louis mutters, reaching a finger out and letting Pumpkin wrap her sticky little ones around it and give a squealy little laugh, which he can’t help but return. “Goddamnit,” he sighs, “I want one. God, can’t I just take this one, mate, you’ve got two already?”

Zayn lifts her up, sniffing her diaper. “You can take her in for a poopy change if you’re really longing for it.”

“I’m good. I’m good.”

“Thought so,” Zayn sighs, hitching the little one up and walking off with her.

Louis takes a slice of watermelon and leans back in the couch, throwing his feet up on the coffee-table. Niall’s hanging over the edge of the pool, gesturing wildly toward him.

“What?!” Louis screams.

“Watermelon!” Niall screams back, “bring me a slice! Now!”

“What’s the magic word?!”

“ _NOW_!”

Louis sighs, giving up. He gets off the couch, pulls his shorts down over his fat arse and brings a couple slices of watermelon - because when Niall says ‘a slice’, he won’t be satisfied at any less than four - and feeds them into his mouth.

“Thanks, babe, and could you do me just one more teeny tiny little favour?” Niall asks, mouth still full of the last favour.

“What?”

“Just turn around for a second, I’ve got to see the backside of what’s going on with these shorts,” he says, watermelon-juice seeping down his chin as he laughs at himself.

Louis rolls his eyes, but makes a show out of walking away nonetheless.

The catwalk gets cut short about six steps in when Camille decides to suddenly, and very violently, hose him directly in the stomach. He stumbles backwards, slipping on the wet grass and landing on his arse, only surviving due to the extra padding the many dick-substituting ice cream cones he’s had over the summer’s provided him with.

He’s absolutely drenched from top to toe when he gets on his feet again.

“Fuckers!” he screams, which only makes Camille and the lot laugh harder.

Briefly, Louis considers trying to nick the hose off of her and sticking it down her throat till she torpedo-pisses hose-water, but it all seems a bit extreme, so instead he wrenches his white t-shirt out - at which Niall whistles and howls, because of course he does - and shuffles back toward the patio.

“Hate you all, all of you, every single one,” he’s muttering to himself as he reaches back to the patio and snatches Camille’s towel off a chair. He rubs himself dry enough not to be dripping profusely, but his shorts are still soaked dark blue and heavy, his t-shirt’s still see-through and clinging to his skin when he walks through the common room, heading for the stairs.

He never reaches the stairs. He stops dead right before the front hall.

There, hauling a suitcase and a quilted brown shoulderbrag with him, comes Harry.

He’s in kneelength khaki's, sandals and a white polo, his long hair waving far past his collarbones. He’s got a bit of a tan; reddish on the bridge of the nose, but nicely sunkissed everywhere else.

He wasn’t supposed to be back for another three days. Louis had counted. Religiously. Sort of.

“What the fuck.”

Harry’s head snaps up, and then his eyes blow wide. Then his mouth does too. “Hi,” he says, just slightly sheepish. He lets go of his suitcase-handle and throws his arms out, “surpriiiiise.”

Louis just stares at him, frozen.

“Sorry, I— sorry, I was hoping I could sneak up for a shower before I saw you, I probably smell from the drive here, I just—”

“You weren’t supposed to be back for another three days,” Louis says, almost accusatory. He hadn’t planned for this. He wasn’t ready for this, not today. He hadn’t dressed for this. God, he’s _still_ dripping wet. “What are you doing home?”

Harry shrugs a shoulder, scratching at his suitcase. “I just, I don’t know… Saw you guys’ pictures up on Zayn’s Instagram, and— dunno, we rarely get this good weather for long, didn’t wanna miss the fun. Got an early discharge. Wanted to surprise you.”

“Right. Fuck.” Louis wipes a hand over his mouth, just taking in the look of him.

The _smell_ of him - or lack thereof. Well, he does smell, sort of sweaty, but it’s the normal kind, the kind Zayn or Liam or Emmy would. He doesn’t smell of much else than that, at least not from the four feet of distance Louis still hasn’t closed between them. It’s different. Weird.

“Well, it’s— christ, it’s good to see you again, Haz,” Louis exclaims belatedly, and it really is. It’s been about a month since Harry was moved from the hospital to the Snip rehabilitation-center, which, for reasons that Louis can’t quite remember in detail, is a no-go zone for anyone other than snipped alpha’s and betas. They’ve spoken on the phone almost every day, Skyped as often as they could, but they’ve not been in each other’s space like this. They’ve not been close enough to touch. “I, ehm—”

“I’d hug you, but you’re soaking wet,” Harry says.

Louis looks down himself, and the puddle that’s formed around his feet. “Fuck. Right.” He looks up again, chuckling awkwardly, “let me help you with your luggage instead, then.”

He tries to insist on taking Harry’s suitcase, but Harry’s too stubborn so he ends up with the quilted shoulderbag instead, which weighs so little that it’s almost ridiculous, but he supposes it’s the symbolism of it that counts. He’s helping Harry up to his room. He’s helping Harry home again.

It’s weird.

“How are you feeling?” Louis blurts, halfway up the stairs, “I, how is— how does—” Harry laughs a little and Louis does too, dropping his head. “Fuck. I just, ehm— it’s so great to see you again. Really.”

Harry smiles, cheek dimpled when Louis looks up again. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too.”

They stop right outside Harry’s bedroom, where not a soul’s been inside since he left, and Harry looks down at Louis, tapping the top of his suitcase, smile wide and closed-lipped. “Again, I, uhm— I’d hug you, but—”

“Right. Yeah. Course. Yeah,” Louis stumbles backwards a bit, then forward again when he realises he’s still holding Harry’s shoulderbag. He hands it over rather inelegantly, then nearly trips himself walking backwards. “I’m just gonna go, ehm— change, then. Yeah.”

“Yeah, okay,” Harry says, grinning at the floor and scratching at his ear, “you do that.”

“Yeah, I— yeah.”

He lets out a long breath once he’s safe in the solitude of his own bedroom. He doesn’t know why he just acted that awkward.

Well, he’s got a clue.

As much as they’ve been keeping in contact since Harry’s snip, talking about the operation, his scars, his fears, his daily struggles and his quirky little observations at the rehabilitation center, they haven’t talked about what came after. They haven’t talked about _them_. Or whether there even _is_ a ’them’ anymore. When Harry went in for the operation, they’d made a sort of silent agreement to put everything on hold - at least that’s how Louis interpreted it at the time. He isn’t entirely sure now, whether to Harry it wasn’t so much ‘hold’ as it was ‘exit’, but the uncertainty’s making his stomach knot up tighter than it has in months.

 

*

 

The rest of the day is spent rather calmly, sucking up every bit of sun possible. Harry gets greeted with hug-attacks and smacking wet kisses and inappropriate questions, _lots_ of inappropriate questions, and then made to change into swimtrunks and jump in the pool when it’s evening and much too cold, as a sort of welcome back-ritual. It was Niall’s idea.

At dinner, Harry holds a little bit of a speech, about his state now, and how he doesn’t want to be treated any differently by anyone, but that he also doesn’t want anyone to be scared to ask anything they want. He spends an inordinate amount of time trying to explain to Micky what exactly The Snip is and why he got it done, without getting into details that Liam deems inappropriate for a seven-year-old.

After dinner, Harry takes two missed month’s worth of baby-adoration out on Pumpkin, until she starts to scream and he hands her back to Liam.

Later, when the kids are down, they’re spread around the garden, evening-lights on and a deck of cards brought out. Niall’s just forfeited a game of Fish in favour of going to bed with his beatiful wife, the pathetic son of a bitch, and now Louis’ lying alone, curled up in a blanket, halfheartedly lurking on Camille and Emmy as they get each other off under a blanket on the couch across from him.

“Room for one more?”

Louis looks up. “I don’t know, really, ‘ve you had a shower yet?”

“I promise you, I’ve just come out of one,” Harry says.

“Well, then your hair’s all wet still, that’s no use.”

Harry groans. “Just budge up already.”

“No,” Louis mutters, but rolls around anyway, nose pressing into the back of the couch, and Harry plops down behind him. He lies on his back first, but there’s not really room enough, so in the end he turns over, linking an arm around Louis’ stomach.

Louis takes a second to adjust to the feeling of him, then turns in his arms and opens the blanket and lets him snuggle up. When he presses his nose into the crook of Harry’s neck and sniffs him in, he gets a faint bit of what Harry just to stink of everyday. There’s a slight little bit of him which pouts for a second, knowing he’ll never smell that scent again nearly as strongly, but it’s minuscule compared to the rest of him, just happy to have Harry close.

Camille and Emmy get up and Harry and Louis stay out, legs intertwined, arms around each other, faces buried in one another’s necks. Their breathings sync up, chests rising and falling against one another, and Harry’s heart thumps into him, a little harder the longer they lie there.

“You know, when, uhm,” Harry drawls at some point, the low vibration of his voice making Louis’ heart loop in his chest. He keeps his composure, nosing into Harry’s soft skin instead of shuddering. “When I first saw you again? Earlier?”

“Yeah,” Louis murmurs, “I was kind of there too, so.”

Harry chuckles softly. “I’ve, uhm— I’ve not felt anything at all since, uhm… I’ve not reacted to anything what so ever. Not off the pills anyway.”

“Have you tried the pills?”

“Yeah,” Harry says, “they gave me a pack and a prescription and I tried them once at the center,” he explains, and then there’s a tense two seconds of silence before he realises why Louis’ gone stiff in his arms and adds on; “I mean, to have a wank. I just had a wank. By myself. By my lonesome. I swear.”

“It’s okay if you’d—”

“No,” Harry cuts off, “cause if you’ve been going round with other guys while I’ve been there, I’ll not feel okay. I mean, I won’t have the right not to, I guess, but I still won’t feel okay. If you have. And either way I haven’t wanted to, since. With anybody but you.”

Louis nods, nose flopping over Harry’s collarbone. “I haven’t,” he says, “and I wouldn’t have felt okay if you had either,” he admits.

“No,” Harry agrees, “anyway, what I was saying was I’d made it work fine with those pills, yeah? At the center. It functioned like it should. Took a bit long to, like… finish, but it functioned good apart from that, and that might’ve just been because I wasn’t using porn.”

“You’re off that, are you?”

“Yeah. I don’t think that— I don’t even want to watch it. At least not a lot of the stuff I was watching before. It just seems… I don’t know, extreme to me now. Maybe I’ll watch some softcore gay stuff where the bottom looks like you at some point or something.”

Louis nips at his collarbone by the teeth. “Why don’t you just get a video of the real me? Wouldn’t that be even better?”

“I’m not going to film you naked, what if my phone got hacked,” Harry exclaims, “and either way, we’re getting off track. What I was saying was, it’s worked on the pill. But it hasn’t worked, like, at _all_ without them. Like, I haven’t reacted to _anything_ , downstairs.”

“Okay,” Louis says, quietly, because he isn’t sure how to react without accidentally hurting Harry. He knows this has been a tough journey, that Harry’s had nights where he regretted so bad he had violent panic attacks, and that he’s still going to be seeing a therapist every week to work on his self-esteem post-Snip. “Well, that’s pretty normal after The Snip, innit? It’s just great that the pills work for you.”

“Hm,” Harry says, “anyway, I was just saying that, like— when I saw you earlier. For the first time. When you were wet and your hair was smoothed back like that and everything, and those little shorts, I just— I swear I felt a twitch. Like, down there. I felt something.”

Louis snorts a chuckle. “That’s flattering.”

“You looked so, so hot,” Harry says, “before everything, I think I’d have just pounced on you. Like, just fucking— like a proper alpha.”

“You _are_ a proper alpha.”

“Hm.”

Louis kisses the bottom of his throat. “You _are_ a proper alpha,” he whispers, and Harry’s fingers twitch where they’ve settled around the back of his thigh, “you’re such a good alpha, just like this.”

He slides a hand down to cup Harry’s crotch and Harry jerks a little, but doesn’t pull it off. There isn’t any sign of Harry having fattened up at all yet, but Louis slips a hand down his khaki’s and massages his soft prick through his boxers anyway. Harry lets out a shaky breath against his ear and grinds into him, claws at his thigh and his arse and licks at his neck while Louis works his hand on him.

Eventually, though, he gives a long sigh and loops a hand around Louis’ wrist. “It’s not, uhm—” he says on a horribly hoarse little voice, pulling Louis’ hand off, “it’s not going to happen, I think. I’m sorry, please don’t take it as, like—”

“Hey.” Louis puts his hand on the side of Harry’s face instead, catching his eye, “I won’t take it the wrong way. I’ve been with you every step of the way, I am on your side. I’m on _your_ side. And, no matter how many pills you have to take to get hard, or how little sex we’re going to have, I still think you’re the sexiest alpha there is. I do.”

Harry rolls his eyes, so Louis stretches up and kisses him.

“I mean it,” he says, raising his brows at Harry. He presses another kiss to Harry’s poor pouty-pink mouth, “I mean it, love, I understand this. And you know what I’ve missed? Not since you left, but since long before that, too? You know what I’ve missed?”

Harry swallows. “What?”

“This,” Louis gestures between them, “this, just— just you and me, lying together. Just being us, just being together without— you know. Just you and me again. Being close.”

Harry drags his teeth over his lip, brows furrowed, and he doesn’t look a hundred percent convinced, not even when he nods or when he leans in and kisses Louis back, but Louis hadn’t expected him to. This is something that’s going to take time to learn to live with; this might never be something Harry’s going to feel a hundred percent okay with about himself.

But this is so, so much better than what it was. They can be together. Just be.

“I love you,” Harry says, kissing the side of his mouth and then his cheek and his mouth again and his other cheek and his forehead and his ear and Louis giggles and turns away from him. “I love you,” he repeats, curling around Louis from behind, “I’m so sorry for everything, but I’ve missed you so much.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Louis says, taking his big hand and folding it around his own.

Harry noses into the nape of his neck. “I can just do something for you instead, if you want.”

“Yeah, you can,” Louis says, “you can take me out on a date tomorrow. A proper one. Restaurant-dinner and cinema and complimenting my dress and everything.”

“Even if your dress is ugly?”

Louis shoves an elbow back at him. “Yes,” he says anyway, “even if you’ve got issues getting it up and I’ve got on an ugly dress and we get in a fight over whether to split the bill or what movie to watch, I don’t care. As long as it’s with you.”

Harry presses closer up against him, squeezing his entire body. “I want that too.”

 

*

 

The following evening, after having been led down into the playroom with a blindfold on, Louis is met with the sight of candles all over, a portable vinyl-player streaming softly crackling tunes and a picnic rug on the fluffy green carpet. Harry’s even filled a wicker basket with baguettes and sausage and wine and grapes and chocolate-covered strawberries for dessert. He apologises for not taking Louis out to a restaurant instead, promising that he’ll do that for their next date and Louis slaps him over the back of the head because this is much sweeter than any random restaurant-date. This is the most romantic thing anyone’s ever done for him. They lie around chatting for ages, fingers intertwined, mouths meeting every now and then for tender, intentless little kisses. Afterwards, they clean up together and Harry follows Louis to bed. They try for a while without any luck, and then Harry offers to take the pills and Louis tells him he doesn’t have to, that this night was enough in itself.

Harry takes the pills anyway, then lays Louis out on his stomach and rims him for ages.

“Hey,” he says, crawling up Louis’ back again, pressing his slicked-up mouth to the back of his ear, “I love you.”

“I love _you_ ,” Louis huffs, slapping back at him and cupping his arsecheek, “your jaw must be aching like hell.”

“S’all right,” Harry murmurs, laying down on him fully.

And— “ _oh_.”

“Oh,” Harry echoes, chuckling.

Louis bites his lip, rolling over under Harry. He reaches up and wipes the slick off of Harry’s mouth with the back of his wrist, then curls the hand around his neck and pulls him down for a kiss. Harry’s mouth gives easily, and the kiss turns deep and tonguey, Harry’s hands brushing gently up and down Louis’ sides, feeling him all over. It’s different than it ever has been with Harry already. Slower. Sweeter.

“Don’t have to use a condom, do I?” Harry murmurs against Louis’ skin and Louis chuckles a bit because he knows Harry already knows that he doesn’t. He just wants to hear Louis say it. Once an alpha, always an alpha.

“No,” Louis says, “no one’s touched me since you, Haz.”

Harry grunts appreciatively, tongue flattening out over Louis’ collarbone as he hitches his arse up and starts to press into him. Louis throws his head back with a choked noise, heels crawling further up Harry’s back as he opens up, fights to accommodate the girth of him again.

“Snip doesn’t— _ah_ — doesn’t change anything size-wise, then,” he groans, and Harry chuckles against his skin.

He lifts up, smiling down at Louis. “Struggling?”

“I’m just fine,” Louis snorts, pressing his heels down on Harry’s arse to make him bottom out.

“ _Ungh_.” Harry drops down again, mouth finding Louis’, tongue dipping in sloppily, “oh god. Oh god, I’ve missed this. God, _fuck_ , I’ve missed being inside you.”

Louis digs his fingers into Harry’s hair and cradles his head close as Harry starts move, careful at first, but harder quickly. “Missed it, _ah_ , too, Haz, missed you so much.”

He continues at a faster pace for a minute or so, then suddenly slows down again, more and more, and Louis realises the issue quite quickly; he’s gone soft again. In the end, Harry deflates on top of him with an exasperated sigh, face burying in the mattress by Louis’ head.

“Fuck,” he hisses, slamming a hand into the front of the nightstand. “ _Fuck_ this.”

Louis takes a second just to gather his thoughts, think out how to handle this without smashing Harry’s self-esteem to pieces or making him never want to try again.

Then he does something he’d forgotten Harry used to like.

“ _Ah_ ,” Harry hisses, and Louis clenches down around him again, and again, until Harry’s panting into his neck, fattening up inside his arse. “Yeah, keep, _ah_ , don’t stop,” he says, “don’t stop, babe, that’s—” he starts to grind into Louis’ again, and Louis keeps going until he’s fully hard again, fucking into him.

“You’re so good,” he whispers, as Harry fucks him deeply, kissing and licking on his neck and collarbones, grunting and groaning and growling, even, “you’re so good, you’re so good, babe, _ungh_ , you’re such a good alpha, fuck me so well.”

Harry comes first, fingers twitching where he’s intertwined them with Louis’ in the sheets, entire body tensing up and then falling apart with a shudder. He lifts up a second later, pressing soft little kisses all over Louis’ face as he pulls on him until he spurts up between them. Afterwards, he keeps on kissing Louis, on the collarbones, the throat, the jaw, the cheeks, the mouth, the nose, the forehead, the eyelids, and Louis has to put him in a headlock before he stops and settles down a bit.

“This was incredible,” Louis breathes a while later, when they’re still lying like that, heads turned to where their hands still lie interlocked, Harry’s big thumb stroking circles over Louis’ skin. “This was the best we’ve had,” he says, because it’s true; it’s the first time it didn’t feel slightly like just using each other to get off. “I’m not even lying, I’ve never felt you be so, like— present before. You were just here with me. Properly. That’s what I want.”

Harry noses into his skin, giving a soft little growl just out of habit. “I want that too,” he says, squeezing Louis’ hand, “I want everything with you.”

And so that’s what he gets. Everything and more.

**Author's Note:**

> my tumblr is pointerbrotherblog


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